Hypotheses on mechanisms underlying observational learning in animals

Learning through observation or vicarious learning has been systematically studied in a variety of animal species for only 20 years. Demonstrating in animals a capacity to benefit from a conspecific's experience, this type of acquisition was first thought to require superior cognitive processes and thus to be restricted to primates, if possible at all in animals. The concept of imitation was commonly applied in this line of study to any social transmission. Later, experiments on vicarious learning showed that numerous species (rodents, cats, birds, primates, etc.) learn more quickly to perform an act whenever they have the opportunity of watching a conspecific performing that act. The principal characteristic of this acquisition is that it occurs during the observation period when the observer has no opportunity of either performing a response or receiving reinforcement. Four hypothesis have been put forward to explain the mechanisms underlying this type of acquisition : local enhancement, the opportunity for mediate responses, a sensory preconditioning, and the monitoring of the observer's response by some quantitative and/or qualitative aspects of the model's response. The fact that animals prove to have such a capacity is moreover a factor to be kept in mind in all studies in the eco-ethological field (particularly those concerning the predator-prey relation).