Overimitation is imitating relevant and irrelevant actions to achieve a final goal (Lyons et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007, 104(50), 19751–19756). We investigated whether the order of demonstration (the irrelevant action is demonstrated before or after the final goal) induces overimitation when using explicit instruction (saying the instrumental goal). We employed a between-subjects design with 48 five-year-olds. In the before condition, the irrelevant action towards the sub-apparatus was performed, followed by the action relevant to the final goal with the main apparatus. In the after condition, the experimenter performed the irrelevant action after the final goal. Results indicated that overimitation occurred when irrelevant actions were demonstrated after the goal using explicit instruction. This may mean that children's overimitation is affected by goal demotion, which is created through the order of demonstration of the irrelevant actions. This highlights how goal demotion affects children's overimitation and clarifies how children perceive intentionality in the action sequence, including irrelevant actions.

中文翻译：

---

不相关的行为、目标降级和明确的指导：过度模仿的研究

过度模仿是模仿相关和不相关的行为以实现最终目标（Lyons 等人，美国国家科学院院刊, 2007, 104(50), 19751–19756)。我们调查了在使用明确指令（说工具性目标）时，演示顺序（在最终目标之前或之后演示了无关的动作）是否会导致过度模仿。我们对 48 名 5 岁儿童采用了受试者间设计。在before条件下，对子设备执行无关的动作，然后是与主设备的最终目标相关的动作。在after条件下，实验者在最终目标之后执行无关的动作。结果表明，当使用明确的指令达到目标后展示了不相关的动作时，就会发生过度模仿。这可能意味着孩子的过度模仿受到了目标降级的影响，目标降级是通过不相关动作的演示顺序而产生的。