Nicola Mcguigan
Biographic Data
| ID | 3658902 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicola Mcguigan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicola |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcguigan |
| SIGNATURE | MCGUIGAN N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the West of Scotland |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1658-6897 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 14 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The benefits and risks of child-dog attachment and child-dog behaviours for child psychological well-being
The importance of secure human attachments in childhood for healthy psychological development is well-established, yet the well-being implications of child-dog symbiotic relationships are less understood. Children form strong emotional bonds with their pet dogs that meet the prerequisites for an attachment relationship. These bonds can be mutually reinforcing and beneficial and could indicate positive child well-being. However, not all child-dog …
Effects of verbal instruction vs. modelling on imitation and overimitation
Human culture is the result of a unique cumulative evolutionary process. Despite the importance of culture for our species the social transmission mechanisms underlying this process are still not fully understood. In particular, the role of language—another unique human behaviour—in social transmission is under-explored. In this first direct, systematic comparison of demonstration vs. language-based social learning, we ran transmission chains of …
Why do chimpanzees have diverse behavioral repertoires yet lack more complex cultures? Invention and social information use in a cumulative task
‘Over-imitation’: A review and appraisal of a decade of research
The Effect of Dog-Assisted Intervention on Student Well-Being, Mood, and Anxiety
This novel, exploratory study investigated the effect of a short, 20 min, dog-assisted intervention on student well-being, mood, and anxiety. One hundred and thirty-two university students were allocated to either an experimental condition or one of two control conditions. Each participant completed the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMBS), the State Trait Anxiety Scale (STAI), and the UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist (UMACL) both befo…
From over-imitation to super-copying: Adults imitate causally irrelevant aspects of tool use with higher fidelity than young children
Recent research has revealed a striking tendency in young children to imitate even causally irrelevant actions, a phenomenon dubbed 'over-imitation'. To investigate whether children develop beyond this, we allowed both adults and children to witness either a child or adult model performing goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant actions to extract a reward from a transparent puzzle box. Surprisingly, copying of irrelevant actions increased with age, wi…
Emulation, imitation, over-imitation and the scope of culture for child and chimpanzee
We describe our recent studies of imitation and cultural transmission in chimpanzees and children, which question late twentieth-century characterizations of children as imitators, but chimpanzees as emulators. As emulation entails learning only about the results of others' actions, it has been thought to curtail any capacity to sustain cultures. Recent chimpanzee diffusion experiments have by contrast documented a significant capacity for copyin…
The relation between hiding skill and judgment of eye direction in preschool children
This study examines J. H. Flavell, S. G. Shipstead, and K. Croft's (1978) finding that 2 1/2-year-old children can hide an object behind a screen but cannot achieve the same result by placing the screen in front of the object. Experiment 1 replicated this finding alongside a task in which children judged what a person in a picture was looking at. Performance on the move-object task approached ceiling; performances on the move-screen and looking-w…
From over-imitation to super-copying: Adults imitate causally irrelevant aspects of tool use with higher fidelity than young children
Recent research has revealed a striking tendency in young children to imitate even causally irrelevant actions, a phenomenon dubbed 'over-imitation'. To investigate whether children develop beyond this, we allowed both adults and children to witness either a child or adult model performing goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant actions to extract a reward from a transparent puzzle box. Surprisingly, copying of irrelevant actions increased with age, wi…
The relation between hiding skill and judgment of eye direction in preschool children
This study examines J. H. Flavell, S. G. Shipstead, and K. Croft's (1978) finding that 2 1/2-year-old children can hide an object behind a screen but cannot achieve the same result by placing the screen in front of the object. Experiment 1 replicated this finding alongside a task in which children judged what a person in a picture was looking at. Performance on the move-object task approached ceiling; performances on the move-screen and looking-w…
The relation between hiding skill and judgment of eye direction in preschool children
This study examines J. H. Flavell, S. G. Shipstead, and K. Croft's (1978) finding that 2 1/2-year-old children can hide an object behind a screen but cannot achieve the same result by placing the screen in front of the object. Experiment 1 replicated this finding alongside a task in which children judged what a person in a picture was looking at. Performance on the move-object task approached ceiling; performances on the move-screen and looking-w…
Emulation, imitation, over-imitation and the scope of culture for child and chimpanzee
We describe our recent studies of imitation and cultural transmission in chimpanzees and children, which question late twentieth-century characterizations of children as imitators, but chimpanzees as emulators. As emulation entails learning only about the results of others' actions, it has been thought to curtail any capacity to sustain cultures. Recent chimpanzee diffusion experiments have by contrast documented a significant capacity for copyin…
From over-imitation to super-copying: Adults imitate causally irrelevant aspects of tool use with higher fidelity than young children
Recent research has revealed a striking tendency in young children to imitate even causally irrelevant actions, a phenomenon dubbed 'over-imitation'. To investigate whether children develop beyond this, we allowed both adults and children to witness either a child or adult model performing goal-relevant and goal-irrelevant actions to extract a reward from a transparent puzzle box. Surprisingly, copying of irrelevant actions increased with age, wi…
The Effect of Dog-Assisted Intervention on Student Well-Being, Mood, and Anxiety
This novel, exploratory study investigated the effect of a short, 20 min, dog-assisted intervention on student well-being, mood, and anxiety. One hundred and thirty-two university students were allocated to either an experimental condition or one of two control conditions. Each participant completed the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMBS), the State Trait Anxiety Scale (STAI), and the UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist (UMACL) both befo…
‘Over-imitation’: A review and appraisal of a decade of research
Effects of verbal instruction vs. modelling on imitation and overimitation
Human culture is the result of a unique cumulative evolutionary process. Despite the importance of culture for our species the social transmission mechanisms underlying this process are still not fully understood. In particular, the role of language—another unique human behaviour—in social transmission is under-explored. In this first direct, systematic comparison of demonstration vs. language-based social learning, we ran transmission chains of …
Why do chimpanzees have diverse behavioral repertoires yet lack more complex cultures? Invention and social information use in a cumulative task
The benefits and risks of child-dog attachment and child-dog behaviours for child psychological well-being
The importance of secure human attachments in childhood for healthy psychological development is well-established, yet the well-being implications of child-dog symbiotic relationships are less understood. Children form strong emotional bonds with their pet dogs that meet the prerequisites for an attachment relationship. These bonds can be mutually reinforcing and beneficial and could indicate positive child well-being. However, not all child-dog …
Psychology (8 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Cognitive psychology (6 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Developmental psychology (4 works) · Imitation (4 works) · Social learning (4 works) · Action Observation and Synchronization (3 works) · Biology (3 works)