征稿期刊

Cognitive Development

期刊级别

IF 1.8 (JCR 2024)

SSCI

Q3 (PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL 64/94)

Q3 (PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL 56/102)

征稿主题

The interplay between cognition and (over-)imitation

细分领域

Social learning is central to children’s acquisition of cultural knowledge and can serve both instrumental and social affiliative goals. The peculiar propensity to imitate visibly non-functional actions, termed over-imitation, has gained considerable attention in recent years, given its potential role in the cultural transmission of norms and rituals. Social learning is intricately linked to cognition, yet lively theoretical debate centers around the question whether human social learning relies on specific evolutionary adaptations to our cognition (Natural pedagogy) or is the product of cultural evolution itself, based on general and widely shared cognitive abilities (Cognitive gadgets). Exciting new empirical work offers fresh insights. For instance, cross-cultural research points to shared mechanisms but also specific aspects of social learning across different human ecologies. At the same time, comparative research across different species calls into question overly human-centric views on social learning. Research delineating variation in social learning within the human species (e.g., age-related changes, neurodiversity, cross-cultural) and beyond (cross-species, robotics, artificial intelligence) will enable new breakthroughs in our understanding of the interplay between cognitive mechanisms and social learning.The aim of this special issue of Cognitive Development is to present new findings regarding the role of cognition in children’s social learning, with a focus on imitation and over-imitation. This special issue invites manuscripts that examine the cognitive processes that influence social learning and those that investigate how cognition is impacted by social learning. Topics of interest include but are not limited to individual differences in cognitive processes (e.g., attention, self-regulation, curiosity), cross-cultural and cross-species comparisons, developmental changes and neurodiversity.

重要时间

Abstract Deadline: 31 July 2025

Submission Deadline: 28 February 2026