[4] A stimulus in the form of a flickering light was presented, after which the kitten has to press a lever in order to obtain a food reward.
For an action to be an instance of imitative learning, an animal must observe and reproduce the specific pattern of movements produced by the model.
Some researchers have proposed evidence that true imitation does not occur in non-primates, and that the observational learning exhibited involves less cognitively complex means such as stimulus enhancement.
In one study by Buttelman et al., encultured chimpanzees were found to behave similarly to young children and imitate even those actions that were non instrumental to achieving the desired goal.
[10] In the study, children and chimpanzees between the ages of 3-4 were shown a series of actions to open an opaque puzzle box with a reward inside.
A study by Clegg and Legare tested this by demonstrating a method of making a necklace to young children.
[11] In demonstrations, the model added a step which was not necessary for the achievement of the final goal of completing the necklace.
Taking cues for proper behaviour from the actions of others, rather than using independent judgement, is called a conformity bias.
Recent research has shown that humans are also subject to other biases when selecting whose behaviour to imitate.
The study found that children picked up on the cue that signified prestige and preferentially imitated the prestigious model.
The study suggests that such biases help humans pick up direct and indirect cues that an individual possesses knowledge that is worth learning.
If success requires the robot to complete a complex sequence of actions, the reinforcement learning algorithm may struggle to make progress in training.
These successful examples can guide the reinforcement learning algorithm to the right path better than taking purely random actions would.