Common coding theory suggests that any action (pressing a piano key) is intimately linked with its resultant sensory effect (an auditory musical tone). We conducted two experiments to explore the effect of varying auditory action-effect patterns during complex action learning. In Experiment 1, participants were assigned to 1 of 4 groups, watched a silent video of a hand playing a sequence on a ...

The effects of goal-directed imitation and observational learning were examined whilst learning a goal-directed motor skill (three-ball cascade juggling). An observational learning (OL) group observed a model and a control (CON) group received minimal verbal instructions regarding how to hold and release the juggling balls. The OL group performed more juggling cycles across practice and retenti...

Previous literature established a link between major depressive disorder (MDD) and altered reward processing as well as between empathy and (observational) reward learning. The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of MDD on the electrophysiological correlates - the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the P300 - of active and observational reward processing and to relate them to ...

BACKGROUND Physical activities among adolescents affects health during pubescence and adolescence and decrease in physical activities among adolescents has become a global challenge. The aim of the present study was to define the relation between the level of physical activity among adolescent girls and their health beliefs as personal factor and level of observational learning as environmental...

A major open question is whether computational strategies thought to be used during experiential learning, specifically model-based and model-free reinforcement learning, also support observational learning. Furthermore, the question of how observational learning occurs when observers must learn about the value of options from observing outcomes in the absence of choice has not been addressed. ...

Observational learning occurs when privately-informed individuals sequentially choose among finitely many actions, after seeing predecessors’ choices. We summarize the general theory of this paradigm: Belief convergence forces action convergence, specifically, copycat “herds” arise. Also, beliefs converge to a point mass on the truth exactly when the private information is not uniformly bounded...

Objectives: Following the development of the Sport Imagery Ability Questionnaire (SIAQ; Williams & Cumming, 2011), the aim of the present two studies was to more comprehensively examine the relationship between sport-related imagery ability and the functions of imagery and observational learning (OL) athletes report. A second aim was to establish the SIAQ’s predictive validity. Design: Two samp...

In the present review we discuss an extension of classical perceptual learning called the observational learning paradigm. We propose that studying the process how humans develop internal representation of their environment requires modifications of the original perceptual learning paradigm which lead to observational learning. We relate observational learning to other types of learning, mentio...