Our proclivity toward high-fidelity transmission of knowledge is one of the key mechanisms that underpins our success as a species. This study evaluated overimitation within children with hearing impairments (who had either a cochlear implant or a hearing aid) in relation to those with normal hearing. A total of seventy-two 4-year-old children were shown how to operate novel objects using a series of causally irrelevant actions, followed by causally relevant action. We measured the degree to which children reproduced the irrelevant actions as an indicator of imitative fidelity. Children with either hearing impairments or normal hearing replicated the irrelevant actions at rates above the baseline. However, imitative fidelity of the former group was significantly lower. In addition, children with hearing impairments were also less likely to identify and achieve the outcome by performing the relevant act. This study advances our understanding of social learning in children with hearing impairments and proposes potential weakness of social-cognitive skills within this population.

中文翻译：

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与听力正常的儿童相比，人工耳蜗或助听器的儿童过度模仿

我们对知识的高保真传播的倾向是支撑我们作为一个物种取得成功的关键机制之一。本研究评估了听力障碍儿童（植入人工耳蜗或助听器）与听力正常儿童的过度模仿行为。共有 72 名 4 岁儿童被展示如何使用一系列因果无关的动作来操作新物体，然后是因果相关的动作。我们测量了儿童复制无关动作的程度，作为模仿忠诚度的指标。有听力障碍或听力正常的儿童以高于基线的速度复制了不相关的动作。然而，前一组的模仿保真度明显较低。此外，有听力障碍的儿童也不太可能通过执行相关行为来确定和实现结果。这项研究增进了我们对听力障碍儿童社交学习的理解，并提出了该人群社交认知技能的潜在弱点。