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Overimitation Effect: Application of Rationality Principle, Following Ostensive Cues or Adoption of Joint Action?
A contradiction exists between two explanatory principles in studies of the overimitation effect and imitation in general. On the one hand, children, following an adult's demonstration, most likely ignore the rationality principle while imitating irrelevant actions. On the other hand, the existing data demonstrate that children do not imitate ineffective actions. The current study tested the hypothesis that overimitation reflects children’s consent to be engaged in joint action with an adult, wherein children apply the rationality principle solely to detect action and wherein children, being guided by ostensive communication, identify this joint action with the object’s essence. In Experiment 1, after the classical experimental procedure for overimitation effect, we changed the interaction with the child with regard to the joint action’s purpose and the object’s role in it (in these conditions subjects did not copy the irrelevant actions) or we changed the motivation behind the joint action (in this condition subjects persisted in imitating the irrelevant actions). In Experiment 2, after the classical experimental procedure, we submitted the modified object to the subjects. Our subjects gave up reproducing irrelevant actions on the modified object under conditions of perceptual changes (body appearance, the appearance of the parts for irrelevant actions, or their locations). In contrast, subjects still performed the irrelevant actions under conditions of modifications in the causal structure (mode of either irrelevant or relevant actions). This paper discusses the data in relation to the normative approach and to the explanation of the effect through the “suspension” of rationality.