Vicarious Reward and Task Complexity as Determinants of Imitative Learning

Abstract

The effects of task complexity and vicarious reward upon children's ability to learn a substantive educational task through modeling were investigated. After observing a model's performance, all Ss were offered direct reward for matching responses. Accuracy of imitative learning was inversely related to task complexity and facilitated by the presence of vicarious reward. However, as predicted, vicarious reward had a significant effect only for Ss in the high-complexity condition, tended to enhance the performance of Ss in the moderate-complexity condition, and had negligible effects for Ss exposed to the low-complexity task. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that vicarious and direct reward may operate additively, with the former serving primarily to enhance Ss' attention to the relevant modeling cues.