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Previous research suggests that young children are sensitive to causal cues and are able to infer action goals at a young age. In this study, we asked whether these two variables interact by examining whether action understanding influences children’s causal reasoning. Young children (1 to 3 years old) watched a video of two co-occurring potential causes that led to an outcome. Two actors simultan... read moreeously used an intentional and an unintentional action to press two identical buttons, activating a light-up toy. During the exploration phase, 2-year-olds selectively explored the intentionally pressed button. Children were more likely to act on both buttons with age, children’s causal exploration increased over age, and predictive looking increased with age. In the control condition (Experiment 3), we showed that the 2-year-olds’ preference for the intentional button was causally motivated and not a result of an inherent preference for intentional actions. These results suggest that children selectively imitate actions they think are causally efficacious. Limitations and further directions are discussed.read less
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