Infants emerge as picky imitators
By Bruce Bower
By the age of 14 months, infants are masters of imitation. They mimic all sorts of behaviors, including laboratory antics such as touching one’s forehead to a box that then lights up.
Babies on the brink of toddlerhood are not indiscriminate copycats, however. They sometimes opt for simpler ways to do what an adult shows them, signaling a budding capacity for evaluating the sensibility of others’ behavior, according to a study in the Feb. 14 Nature.