Dogs (Canis familiaris) copy-all refine-later where children (Homo sapiens) overimitate

Overimitation is a social learning mechanism in which an observer replicates the actions of a communicative demonstrator even if some of the actions in the process are functionally irrelevant. While many consider overimitation a uniquely human mechanism, some scholars have hypothesized that domestic dogs may overimitate because of their shared evolutionary history and pedagogical learning structures with humans. Previous literature has presented conflicting evidence regarding the presence of overimitation in domestic dogs. This study expanded upon work by Johnston et al. (2017) and directly compared 3- to 5-year-old children and domestic dogs on the same overimitation task. For both dogs and children, we demonstrated an irrelevant action followed by a relevant action and examined how often subjects reproduced this sequence across four trials. Consistent with an overimitation pattern, children reproduced the irrelevant then relevant sequence at a constant rate across four trials. However, dogs decreased the rate with which they reproduced this sequence across trials-a change which is consistent with a copy-all refine-later strategy or simple exploration. These findings support those in Johnston et al.'s (2017) study and further support the hypothesis that dogs do not overimitate like children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).