Language-mediated social transmission in children and adults

This study examines the fidelity with which adults vs. children transmit a set of actions within diffusion chains (generations 1 to 3). The set consisted of causally relevant and causally irrelevant actions. Half of the adult and half of the child chains transmitted the actions via demonstration (next participant saw the previous perform the actions on video); the other half transmitted them verbally (next participant listened to audio file the previous participant describe his/her actions). We measured whether the actions were retained (i.e. re-produced by each next participant in the chain).本研究考察了成人与儿童在传播链（diffusion chains）的第1至3代中传递一组动作的保真度。该组动作涵盖因果相关动作与因果无关动作。成人传播链与儿童传播链各有一半通过演示方式传递动作：后续参与者通过视频观看前一位参与者完成动作；另一半则通过口头描述传递动作：后续参与者聆听前一位参与者录制的、用于描述自身动作的音频文件。本研究测量了这些动作是否被保留，即传播链中的每一位后续参与者能否复现该动作。