Four-year-old Rodney and his 2-year-old sister Margie had always been told to keep away from the stove, good advice for any child and many an adult. Being a mischievous imp, however, Rodney decided one day to heat up a burner and place his hand over it until the singeing of his flesh led him to recoil, shrieking in pain. Rodney was more scared than hurt, really—and no one hearing this story doubts that he learned something important that day. But little Margie, who stood by watching these events unfold, also learned the same lesson. Rodney’s story is a behaviourist’s textbook example: The administration of punishment led to a learned change in his behaviour. But how can we explain Margie’s learning? She received neither punishment nor reinforcement—indeed, she did not even have direct experience with the wicked appliance—yet it is arguable that she is just as likely to keep her hands away from stoves in the future as Rodney is.

Margie’s is a case of observational learning, in which learning takes place by watching the actions of others. Observational learning challenges behaviourism’s reinforcement-based explanations of classical and operant conditioning, but there is no doubt that this type of learning produces changes in behaviour. In all societies, appropriate social behaviour is passed on from generation to generation largely through observation (Bandura, 1965). The rituals and behaviours that are a part of our culture are acquired by each new generation, not only through deliberate training of the young, but also through young people observing the patterns of behaviours of their elders and each other (Flynn & Whiten, 2008). Tasks such as using chopsticks or learning to operate a TV’s remote control are more easily acquired if we watch these activities being carried out before we try ourselves. Even complex motor tasks, such as performing surgery, are learned in part through extensive observation and imitation of models. And anyone who is about to undergo surgery is grateful for observational learning. Just the thought of a generation of surgeons acquiring their surgical techniques using the trial-and-error techniques studied by Thorndike, or the shaping of successive approximations that captivated Skinner, would make any of us very nervous.

In a series of studies that have become landmarks in psychology, Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura and his colleagues investigated the parameters of observational learning (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961) (for additional discussion of Bandura’s work, see the Social Psychology chapter). The researchers escorted individual preschoolers into a play area, where they found a number of desirable toys that 4-year-olds typically like. An adult model, someone whose behaviour might serve as a guide for others, was then led into the room and seated in the opposite corner, where there were several other toys, including a Bobo doll, which is a large inflatable plastic toy with a weighted bottom that allows it to bounce back upright when knocked down. The adult played quietly for a bit but then started aggressing toward the Bobo doll, knocking it down, jumping on it, hitting it with the mallet, kicking it around the room, and yelling “Pow!” and “Kick him!” When the children who observed these actions were later allowed to play with a variety of toys, including a child-size Bobo doll, they were more than twice as likely to interact with it in an aggressive manner as a group of children who had not observed the aggressive model.

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So what? Kids like to break stuff, and after all, Bobo dolls are made to be punched. Although that is true, as FIGURE 7.15 shows, the degree of imitation that the children showed was startling. In fact, the adult model purposely used novel behaviours such as hitting the doll with a toy mallet or throwing it up in the air so that the researchers could distinguish aggressive acts that were clearly the result of observational learning. The children in these studies also showed that they were sensitive to the consequences of the actions they observed. When they saw the adult models being punished for behaving aggressively, the children showed considerably less aggression. When the children observed a model being rewarded and praised for aggressive behaviour, they displayed an increase in aggression (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963). The observational learning seen in Bandura’s studies has implications for social learning and cultural transmission of behaviours, norms, and values (Bandura, 1977, 1994).

Recent research with children has shown that observational learning is well suited to seeding behaviours that can spread widely across a culture through a process called a diffusion chain, where individuals initially learn a behaviour by observing another individual perform that behaviour, and then serve as a model from which other individuals learn the behaviour (Flynn, 2008; Flynn & Whiten, 2008). Experiments investigating the operation of diffusion chains in preschool-aged children have used a procedure in which a child (B) observes an adult model (A) performing a target act, such as using a novel tool to obtain a reward. Then, child B serves as a model for another child, C, who watches B perform the target act, followed by child D observing C perform the target act, and so forth. The evidence to date indicates that children can learn how to use a novel tool by observing an adult model use that tool and, more importantly, can then serve as effective models for other children to learn how to use the tool.

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Initial studies of diffusion chains showed that behaviours such as novel tool use could be spread accurately across 10 children (Flynn & Whiten, 2008; Horner et al., 2006), and more recent work indicates faithful transmission of tool use across a diffusion chain comprised of 20 children (Hopper et al., 2010). These findings of transmission across multiple “cultural generations” underscore that observational learning is well suited for transmission through a diffusion chain, and is thus a potentially powerful means of influencing our culture.

Observational learning is important in many domains of everyday life. Sports provide a good example. Coaches in just about all sports rely on observational learning when they demonstrate critical techniques and skills to players, and athletes also have numerous opportunities to observe other athletes perform. Studies of varsity and recreational level athletes in both team and individual sports indicate that they all report relying heavily on observational learning to improve their performance of critical skills in their respective sports, with varsity athletes reporting an even greater reliance on observational learning than recreational athletes (Wesch, Law, & Hall, 2007). But can merely observing a skill result in an improvement in performing that skill without actually practising it? A number of studies have shown that observing someone else perform a motor task, ranging from reaching for a target to pressing a sequence of keys, can produce robust learning in the observer. In fact, observational learning sometimes results in just as much learning as practising the task itself (Heyes & Foster, 2002; Mattar & Gribble, 2005; Vinter & Perruchet, 2002).

Humans are not the only creatures capable of learning through observing. A wide variety of species learn by observing. In one study, for example, pigeons watched other pigeons get reinforced for either pecking at the feeder or stepping on a bar. When placed in the box later, the pigeons tended to use whatever technique they had observed other pigeons using earlier (Zentall, Sutton, & Sherburne, 1996).

In an interesting series of studies, researchers showed that laboratory-raised rhesus monkeys that had never seen a snake would develop a fear of snakes simply by observing the fear reactions of other monkeys (Cook & Mineka, 1990; Mineka & Cook, 1988). In fact, the fear reactions of these lab-raised monkeys were so authentic and pronounced that they could function as models for still other lab-raised monkeys, creating a kind of observational learning “chain.” These results also support our earlier discussion of how each species has evolved particular biological predispositions for specific behaviours. Virtually every rhesus monkey raised in the wild has a fear of snakes, which strongly suggests that such a fear is one of this species’ predispositions. This research also helps to explain why some phobias that humans suffer from, such as a fear of heights (acrophobia) or enclosed spaces (claustrophobia), are so common, even in people who have never had unpleasant experiences in these contexts (Mineka & Ohman, 2002). The fears may emerge not from specific conditioning experiences but from observing and learning from the reactions of others.

One of the most important questions about observational learning in animals concerns whether monkeys and chimpanzees can learn to use tools by observing tool use in others, which we have already seen can be accomplished by young children. In one of the first controlled studies to examine this issue, chimpanzees observed a model (the experimenter) use a metal bar shaped like a T to pull items of food toward them (Tomasello et al., 1987). Compared with a group that did not observe any tool use, these chimpanzees showed more learning when later performing the task themselves. However, the researchers noted that the chimpanzees hardly ever used the tool in the exact same way that the model did. So, in a later experiment, they introduced a novel twist (Nagell, Olguin, & Tomasello, 1993). In one condition, a model used a rake in its normal position (with the teeth pointed to the ground) to capture a food reward, which was rather inefficient because the teeth were widely spaced and the food sometimes slipped between them. In a second condition, the model flipped over the rake, so that the teeth were pointed up and the flat edge of the rake touched the ground—a more effective procedure for capturing the food. Both groups who observed tool use performed better when trying to obtain the food themselves than did a control group who did not observe a model use the tool. However, the chimpanzees who observed the more efficient procedure did not use it any more often than did those who observed the less efficient procedure; the two groups performed identically. By contrast, 2-year-old children exposed to the same conditions used the rake in the exact same way that each of the models did in the two observational learning conditions. The chimpanzees seemed only to be learning that the tool could be used to obtain food, whereas the children learned something specific about how to use the tool.

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The chimpanzees in these studies had been raised by their mothers in the wild. In a related study, the researchers asked whether chimpanzees who had been raised in environments that also included human contact could learn to imitate the exact actions performed by a model (Tomasello, Savage-Rumbaugh, & Kruger, 1993). The answer was a resounding yes: Chimpanzees raised in a more human-like environment showed more specific observational learning than did those who had been reared by their mothers and performed similarly to human children. This finding led Tomasello and his colleagues (1993) to put forth what they termed the enculturation hypothesis: Being raised in a human culture has a profound effect on the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees, especially their ability to understand the intentions of others when performing tasks such as using tools, which in turn increases their observational learning capacities. Others have criticized the hypothesis (Bering, 2004), noting that there is relatively little evidence in support of it beyond the results of the study (Tomasello et al., 1993).

However, more recent research has found something similar in capuchin monkeys, who are known for their tool use in the wild, such as employing branches or stone hammers to crack open nuts (Boinski, Quatrone, & Swartz, 2000; Fragaszy et al., 2004) or using stones to dig up buried roots (Moura & Lee, 2004). Fredman and Whiten (2008) studied monkeys who had been reared in the wild by their mothers or by human families in Israel as part of a project to train the monkeys to aid quadriplegics. A model demonstrated two ways of using a screwdriver to gain access to a food reward hidden in a box. Some monkeys observed the model poke through a hole in the centre of the box, whereas others watched him pry open the lid at the rim of the box (see FIGURE 7.16). A control group did not observe any use of the tool. Both mother-reared and human-reared monkeys showed evidence of observational learning compared with those in the control group, but the human-reared monkeys carried out the exact action they had observed more often than the mother-reared monkeys.

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Although this evidence implies that there is a cultural influence on the cognitive processes that support observational learning, the researchers noted that the effects on observational learning could be attributed to any number of influences on the human-reared monkeys, including more experience with tools, more attention to a model’s behaviour, or as originally suggested by Tomasello and his colleagues (1993), increased sensitivity to the intentions of others. Thus, more work is needed to understand the exact nature of those processes (Bering, 2004; Tomasello & Call, 2004).

Observational learning involves a neural component as well. As you read in the Neuroscience and Behaviour chapter, mirror neurons are a type of cell found in the brains of primates (including humans). Mirror neurons fire when an animal performs an action, such as when a monkey reaches for a food item. More importantly, however, mirror neurons also fire when an animal watches someone else perform the same specific task (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). Although this “someone else” is usually a fellow member of the same species, some research suggests that mirror neurons in monkeys also fire when they observe humans performing an action (Fogassi et al., 2005). For example, monkeys’ mirror neurons fired when they observed humans grasping for a piece of food, either to eat it or to place it in a container.

Mirror neurons, then, may play a critical role in the imitation of behaviour as well as the prediction of future behaviour (Rizzolatti, 2004). Mirror neurons are thought to be represented in specific subregions in the frontal and parietal lobes, and there is evidence that individual subregions respond most strongly to observing certain kinds of actions (see FIGURE 7.17). If appropriate neurons fire when another organism is seen performing an action, it could indicate an awareness of intentionality, or that the animal is anticipating a likely course of future actions. Although the exact functions of mirror neurons continue to be debated (Hickok, 2009), both of these elements—rote imitation of well-understood behaviours and an awareness of how behaviour is likely to unfold—contribute to observational learning.

Studies of observational learning in healthy adults have shown that watching someone else perform a task engages some of the same brain regions that are activated when people actually perform the task themselves. Do you consider yourself a good dancer? Have you ever watched someone who is a good dancer—a friend or maybe a celebrity on Dancing with the Stars—in the hopes of improving your own dance floor moves? In a recent fMRI study, participants performed two tasks for several days prior to scanning: practising dance sequences to unfamiliar techno-dance songs, and watching music videos containing other dance sequences accompanied by unfamiliar techno-dance songs (Cross et al., 2009). They were then scanned while viewing videos of sequences that they had previously danced or watched, as well as videos of untrained sequences.

Analysis of the fMRI data revealed that in comparison with the untrained sequences, viewing the previously danced or watched sequences recruited a largely similar brain network, including regions considered to be part of the mirror neuron system and a couple of brain regions that showed more activity for previously danced than watched videos. The results of a surprise dancing test given to participants after the conclusion of scanning showed that performance was better on sequences previously watched than on the untrained sequences, demonstrating significant observational learning, but was best of all on the previously danced sequences (Cross et al., 2009). So, while watching Dancing with the Stars might indeed improve your dancing skills, practising on the dance floor should help even more.

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Related evidence indicates that observational learning of some motor skills relies on the motor cortex, which is known to be critical for motor learning. For example, when participants watch another individual engage in a task that involves making a complex reaching movement, significant observational learning occurs (Mattar & Gribble, 2005). To examine whether the observational learning depends on the motor cortex, researchers applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the motor cortex just after participants observed performance of the reaching movement (as you learned in the Neuroscience and Behaviour chapter, TMS results in a temporary disruption in the function of the brain region to which it is applied). Strikingly, applying TMS to the motor cortex greatly reduced the amount of observational learning, whereas applying TMS to a control region outside the motor cortex had no effect on observational learning (Brown, Wilson, & Gribble, 2009).

These findings indicate that some kinds of observational learning are grounded in brain regions that are essential for action. When one organism patterns its actions on another organism’s behaviours, learning is speeded up and potentially dangerous errors (think of Margie, who will not burn her hand on the stove) are prevented.