The acquisition of some novel behaviour solely by observing the behaviour of another animal, usually a CONSPECIFIC. There are many potential causes. The presence of a conspecific may produce social facilitation—for example, a satiated chick will eat if it sees others doing so; it may also direct the observer’s ATTENTION to some aspect of the environment, thus aiding LEARNING.
An animal may also form a PAVLOVIAN ASSOCIATION between a CONDITIONED STIMULUS (CS) and an UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS (US) by observation. There is little evidence that an instrumental association between a response and a US can form this way, possibly because this would require the observer to identify the observed response with its own actions. Nevertheless, the occurrence of vocal imitation in animals suggests that observational learning of an instrumental association between a vocal response and reward might be possible, perhaps as here this identification process is easier. Some investigators treat observation learning synonymously with PERCEPTUAL LEARNING.
