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In a recent study published in Journal of Experimental Child Psychology our postdoc Nazlı Altınok and her colleagues tested whether children expend extra effort to ensure that the demonstrator sees their imitation. In one condition, the demonstrator did not have visual access to the children's actions because a barrier blocked her view. In another condition, the center of the barrier was removed so that the demonstrator had uninterrupted visual access to the children's behavior. Children as young as 3 years old took into account whether or not the demonstrator could see their actions. They were more likely to raise their hands above the barrier during their imitation when the demonstrator's visual access was obscured than when it was not. The paper also discusses what children want to communicate by their imitation. Are children signaling that they are just like the demonstrator, or that they can also perform the action, are they asking for the demonstrator's approval? For now, the paper concludes that children are not curious sponges who soak up all the information by imitating others, but that they can use imitation flexibly from an early age to communicate with others.

Altınok, N., Over, H., & Carpenter, M. (2023). Young children use imitation communicatively. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 231, 105654. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105654