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The present work investigated the effect of modelling on children's pretend play behaviour. Thirty-seven children aged between 27 and 41 months were given 4 min of free play with a dollhouse and associated toy props (pre-modelling phase). Using dolls, an experimenter then acted out a series of vignettes involving object substitutions, imaginary play and attribution of properties. Children were subsequently provided with an additional 4 min free play (post-modelling phase). Consistent with past research, more pretence was exhibited after modelling than before. Furthermore, in the post-modelling phase, children were as likely to generate their own novel pretence as they were to copy the actions demonstrated by the experimenter. They also increased the number of novel symbolic acts involving imaginary play from the pre-to the post-modelling phase. This study highlights how young children will not only imitate a model's demonstration of pretend acts but also use this demonstration to catalyze the creation of their own pretence.

The aim of this study was to explore whether sensorimotor and visuospatial body representations interact in early development. Sixty-two infants between 6 and 15 months of age were tested for visuospatial body representations via a human body visual discrimination task. Their motor activity during the discrimination task, as well as motor development and imitation skill, were assessed as indexes of sensorimotor body representations. Based on research with adults, we predicted inter-correlations between performance on the visuospatial body task and infants' sensorimotor development; however, no significant associations were observed. Discussion speculates on developmental trajectories for these two distinct body representation systems.

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The functions of the somatosensory system are multiple. We use tactile input to localize and experience the various qualities of touch, and proprioceptive information to determine the position of different parts of the body with respect to each other, which provides fundamental information for action. Further, tactile exploration of the characteristics of external objects can result in conscious perceptual experience and stimulus or object recognition. Neuroanatomical studies suggest parallel processing as well as serial processing within the cerebral somatosensory system that reflect these separate functions, with one processing stream terminating in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and the other terminating in the insula. We suggest that, analogously to the organisation of the visual system, somatosensory processing for the guidance of action can be dissociated from the processing that leads to perception and memory. In addition, we find a second division between tactile information processing about external targets in service of object recognition and tactile information processing related to the body itself. We suggest the posterior parietal cortex subserves both perception and action, whereas the insula principally subserves perceptual recognition and learning.