Personal and Situational Facilitation of the Observational Learning of Conservation

The purpose of the present experiment was to appraise the respective contribution of initial competence and of imitation of modeled response in the observational learning of conservation. Nonconservers were selected during a pretest: half succeeded and half failed an Anticipation Task. Anticipators and nonanticipators were subsequently exposed to one of five pretraining conditions which did not involve conservation: generalized imitation of modeled responses; generalized counterimitation; neutralization; contact with the pretraining setting; and no pretraining. Conservation was then demonstrated: one-third of the children were asked to repeat modeled responses during pauses in the demonstration; one-third rested during pauses; demonstration proceeded without pauses for the final third of the subjects. Posttesting was conducted immediately after and four weeks later. As predicted, performance of anticipators surpassed that of nonanticipators who showed no progress at all. Imitation pretraining provided optimal benefits. However, counterimitation pretraining did not prove detrimental as expected. Rehearsal manipulation, moreover, had no influence on acquisition. These results were discussed with reference to a hypothesized sequence of imitation and comprehension processes, the evolution of which is modified by the nonconserver's cognitive preparation and a situational encouragement of imitation.