![]() Toddlers can also infer what the intended outcome of a model’s behavior is even if they do not see the model achieve the goal. Experiments with infants and toddlers show imitation of a wide range of outcomes, including opening containers, activating lights or sounds, and using simple tools (e.g., Carpenter, Call, & Tomasello, 2002 Meltzoff, 1988, 2007 Nielsen, 2006 Want & Harris, 2001). This includes imitating the physical outcomes that people produce using objects. Past research has established that children can quickly and efficiently learn to perform simple behaviors from watching others. We test whether watching an adult sort several objects along a particular dimension (e.g., their nonobvious sound-making properties) will lead children to sort objects along the same dimension. We test imitation at a more abstract level-whether children can learn a cognitive strategy or rule from observing another’s behaviors. The overarching goal of this article is to extend the typical studies of imitation, which have largely examined imitation of concrete actions (means) and outcomes (ends). ![]() To understand how imitation contributes to these achievements, an important question concerns the type of information that can be imitated. Aspects of imitation may be specific to humans indeed, imitation has been implicated in the development of complex social-cognitive processes, such as theory of mind (e.g., Meltzoff, 2007 Meltzoff & Gopnik, 1993), and has been proposed as a fundamental mechanism for transmitting culture from one generation to the next (e.g., Boyd & Richerson, 1996 Meltzoff, Kuhl, Movellan, & Sejnowski, 2009 Tomasello, 1999). Imitation is an early developing ability that allows children to acquire skills and behaviors from other people in their culture.
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