[2] In 1990[3] "emulation" was taken up by Michael Tomasello to explain the findings of an earlier study on ape social learning.
The fidelity of an observational learning mechanism is expected to have profound implications for its capacity for cultural transmission.
In the original version, emulation referred to observers understanding objects in their potential to help them achieve desired results.
An even later definition further clarifies: "In emulation learning, learners see the movement of the objects involved and then come to some insight about its relevance to their own problems".
The methodology most often applied is the so-called ghost-condition – put forward by Cecilia Heyes and colleagues in 1994.
While the use of this method (and subsequently the interpretation of findings) has been criticized on the basis of it lacking ecological validity (it is a strange thing for non-animate objects to move on their own accord[14]), it succeeded in showing that environmental information can be enough for observational learning to occur (work on pigeons[15]).
This study therefore showed, empirically, that imitation is not a necessary requirement for cumulative culture (contra to some previous claims).