Action Imitation

rce er illustrated how to operate a novel toy to achieve a target action. Children in both age groups successfully avior ( the bottle, and twist her right hand in the space above, to show you how to turn the opener. As an adult, you would interpret the ges-tures as intentional, symbolic forms meant to teach you an action (i.e., how to open the bottle of wine). You would infer that you need to hold the bottle while twisting the opener. Yet when actu-ally acting on the opener and bottle, your movements would not be mental ori ally, we as 2- and 3-year-olds interpret gestural movements, and w they use those movements to gain information and learn a action. Iconic gestures are only one type of gesture that can help com-municate ideas to learners. For example, deictic, or pointing, ges-tures have been found to facilitate word learning in infants by focusing their attention on the object whose label they are learning (Shimpi & Huttenlocher, 2007). Conventional gestures, or socially constructed gestures (often called emblems, Ekman & Friesen, 1969), such as head nods, can also be used by children as youn