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Emulation learning and cultural learning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1998

Michael Tomasello
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Yerkes Primate Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 psymt@emory.edu

Abstract

Byrne & Russon redefine the process of emulation learning as “goal emulation” and thereby distort its most distinctive characteristic: the criterion that the observer focuses on environmental rather than behavioral processes. The two empirical examples recounted – gorilla plant processing and orangutan manipulation of human artifacts – are hierarchically organized behaviors, but there is very little evidence that they involve imitative learning, program-level or otherwise.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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