Two-year-olds’ social learning from others’ mistakes in the context of a modified trap-tube task

Three experiments examined 2-year-olds’ (N = 140) social learning of tool use from others’ mistakes using a modified trap-tube task. All participants were ethnic Chinese residing in Taiwan. In Experiment 1A, children observed either tool-pushing actions that led to a trapping error followed by successful retrieval (with the error removed or retained), two tool-pushing retrievals, irrelevant manipulation, or no demonstration. Children who did not see the error during the correction relied exclusively on imitation of tool-pushing and, unlike other groups, showed no emulation-based retrieval. Experiment 1B found that prompting memory for the initial error increased emulation while maintaining imitation. In Experiment 1C, the model verbally framed trapping as correct and retrieval as mistaken, yet children still combined imitation with emulation. These findings suggest that 2-year-olds flexibly integrate imitative and emulative strategies, tuning their social learning of tool-use to how goals, actions, and affordances are structured within the task.