Maternal influence on observational learning in kittens

This experiment showed that kittens learned an instrumental task more readily by watching their own mother than by watching an unfamiliar adult female, and faster still than kittens learning alone. The mother's demonstration was an especially potent model, implicating the strength of the maternal bond and attention in social learning. The findings highlighted that who the demonstrator is, not just that a demonstrator exists, shapes how effectively young animals learn from observation. The study became a key reference for understanding how maternal behaviour transmits skills across generations in cats and for the broader question of biases in social learning.