Senior Scientist,
Head of the Minerva Foundation research group on Social Origins of Cultural Cognition in Infancy

Carpenter, M., Nagell, K., & Tomasello, M. (1998). Social cognition, joint attention, and communicative competence from 9 to 15 months of age. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 63 (4, Serial No. 255). [pdf]

Tomasello, M., & Carpenter, M. (2005). The emergence of social cognition in three young chimpanzees. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 70 (1, Serial No. 279).

Akhtar, N., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (1996). The role of discourse novelty in early word learning. Child Development, 67, 635-645. [pdf]

Behne, T., Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Unwilling versus unable: Infants' understanding of intentional action. Developmental Psychology, 41, 328-337. [pdf]

Behne, T., Carpenter, M., Gräfenhain, M., Liebal, K., Liszkowski, U., Moll, H., Rakoczy, H., Tomasello, M., Warneken, F., & Wyman, E. (2008). Cultural learning and creation. In U. Müller, J. I. M. Carpendale, N. Budwig, & B. Sokol (Eds.), Social life and social knowledge: Toward a process account of development (pp. 65-101). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum. [pdf]

Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2005). One-year-olds comprehend the communicative intentions behind gestures in a hiding game. Developmental Science, 8, 492-499. [pdf]

Buttelmann, D., Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M.  (2007). Enculturated chimpanzees imitate rationally. Developmental Science, 10, F31-F38. [pdf]

Buttelmann, D., Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Rational tool use and tool choice in human infants and great apes. Child Development, 79, 609-626. [pdf]

Buttelmann, D., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping paradigm. Cognition, 112, 337-342. [pdf]

Call, J., & Carpenter, M. (2001). Do apes and children know what they have seen? Animal Cognition, 3, 207-220. [pdf]

Call, J., & Carpenter, M. (2002). Three sources of information in social learning. In K. Dautenhahn & C. Nehaniv (Eds.), Imitation in animals and artifacts (pp. 211-228). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [pdf]

Call, J., & Carpenter, M. (2003). On imitation in apes and children. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 26, 325-349. [pdf]

Call, J., & Carpenter, M. (2009). Monkeys like mimics. Science, 325, 824-825. [pdf]

Call, J., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Copying results and copying actions in the process of social learning: Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens). Animal Cognition, 8, 151-163. [pdf]

Call, J., Hare, B., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2004). 'Unwilling' versus 'unable': Chimpanzees' understanding of human intentions. Developmental Science, 7, 488-498. [pdf]

Carpenter, M. (2006). Instrumental, social, and shared goals and intentions in imitation. In S. J. Rogers & J. Williams (Eds.), Imitation and the development of the social mind: Lessons from typical development and autism (pp. 48-70). New York: Guilford. [pdf]

Carpenter, M. (2009). Just how joint is joint action in infancy? Topics in Cognitive Science, 1, 380-392. [pdf]

Carpenter, M. (in press). Prelinguistic communication. In L. Cummings (Ed.), Pragmatics Encyclopedia. Routledge.

Carpenter, M. (in press). Social cognition and social motivations in infancy. In U. Goswami (Ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development, 2^nd edition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Carpenter, M., Akhtar, N., & Tomasello, M. (1998). Fourteen- to 18-month-old infants differentially imitate intentional and accidental actions. Infant Behavior and Development, 21, 315-330. [pdf]

    Note: This paper is reprinted in D. Muir & A. Slater (Eds.), (2000) Infant development:
    The essential readings (pp. 295-318). Oxford: Blackwell.

Carpenter, M., & Call, J. (2002). The chemistry of social learning: Commentary on Want & Harris (2002). Developmental Science, 5, 22-24. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., & Call, J. (2007). The question of ‘what to imitate’: Inferring goals and intentions from demonstrations. In K. Dautenhahn & C. Nehaniv (Eds.), Imitation and social learning in robots, humans and animals: Behavioural, social and communicative dimensions (pp. 135-151). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., & Call, J. (in press). Comparing the imitative skills of children and nonhuman apes. Revue de Primatologie. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2002). A new false belief test for 36-month-olds. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 20, 393-420. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2002). Understanding 'prior intentions' enables 2-year-olds to imitatively learn a complex task. Child Development, 73, 1431-1441. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Twelve- and 18-month-olds copy actions in terms of goals. Developmental Science, 8, F13-F20. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., & Nielsen, M. (2008). Tools, TV, and trust: Introduction to the special issue on imitation in typically-developing children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 101, 225-227. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., Pennington, B. F., & Rogers, S. J. (2001). Understanding of others’ intentions in children with autism and children with developmental delays. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 31, 589-599. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., Pennington, B. F., & Rogers, S. J. (2002). Interrelations among social-cognitive skills in young children with autism and developmental delays. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 32, 91-106. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., Pennington, B. F., & Rogers, S. J. (2003). Response to Silvio Loddo’s Commentary. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 33, 547-549. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2000). Joint attention, cultural learning, and language acquisition: Implications for children with autism. In A. M. Wetherby & B. M. Prizant (Eds.), Communication and language issues in autism and pervasive developmental disorder: A transactional developmental perspective (pp. 31-54). Baltimore, MD: Brookes. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., Tomasello, M., & Savage-Rumbaugh, S. (1995). Joint attention and imitative learning in children, chimpanzees, and enculturated chimpanzees. Social Development, 4, 217-237. [pdf]

Carpenter, M., Tomasello, M., & Striano, T. (2005). Role reversal imitation and language in typically-developing infants and children with autism. Infancy, 8, 253-278. [pdf]

Gräfenhain, M., Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). One-year-olds' understanding of nonverbal gestures directed to a third person. Cognitive Development, 24, 23-33. [pdf]

Gräfenhain, M., Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Young children’s understanding of joint commitments. Developmental Psychology, 45, 1430-1443.

Krachun, C., Carpenter, M, Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (in press). A new change-of-contents false belief test: Children and chimpanzees compared. International Journal of Comparative Psychology.

Krachun, C., Carpenter, M., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2009). A competitive nonverbal false belief task for children and apes. Developmental Science, 12, 521-535. [pdf]

Liebal, K., Behne, T., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Infants use shared experience to interpret pointing gestures. Developmental Science, 12, 264-271. [pdf]

Liszkowski, U., Albrecht, K., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Infants' visual and auditory communication when a partner is or is not visually attending.  Infant Behavior and Development, 31, 157-167. [pdf]

Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., Henning, A., Striano, T., & Tomasello, M. (2004). Twelve-month-olds point to share attention and interest. Developmental Science, 7, 297-307. [pdf]

Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., Striano, T., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Twelve- and 18-month-olds point to provide information for others. Journal of Cognition and Development, 7, 173-187. [pdf]

Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M.  (2007). Pointing out new news, old news, and absent referents at 12 months of age. Developmental Science, 10 (2), F1-F7. [pdf]

Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Reference and attitude in infant pointing. Journal of Child Language, 34, 1-20. [pdf]

Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cognition, 108, 732-739. [pdf]

Liszkowski, U., Schäfer, M., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Prelinguistic infants, but not chimpanzees, communicate about absent entities. Psychological Science, 20, 654-660. [pdf]

Lohmann, H., Carpenter, M., & Call, J. (2005). Guessing versus choosing – and seeing versus believing – in false belief tasks. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 23, 451-469. [pdf]

Moll, H., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M.  (2007).  Fourteen-month-olds know what others experience only in joint engagement. Developmental Science, 10, 826-835. [pdf]

Moll, H., Koring, C., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M.  (2006). Infants determine others' focus of attention by pragmatics and exclusion. Journal of Cognition and Development, 7, 411-430. [pdf]

Moll, H., Richter, N., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Fourteen-month-olds know what 'we' have shared in a special way. Infancy, 13, 90-101. [pdf]

Nielsen, M., & Carpenter, M. (2008). Reflecting on imitation in autism: Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 101, 165-169. [pdf]

Over, H., & Carpenter, M. (2009). Eighteen-month-old infants show increased helping following priming with affiliation. Psychological Science, 20, 1189-1193. [pdf]

Over, H., & Carpenter, M. (2009). Priming third-party ostracism increases affiliative imitation in children. Developmental Science, 12, F1-F8. [pdf]

Rochat, P., Morgan, R., & Carpenter, M. (1997). Young infants' sensitivity to movement information specifying social causality. Cognitive Development, 12, 441-465. [pdf]

Schwier, C., van Maanen, C., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M.  (2006).  Rational imitation in 12-month-old infants. Infancy, 10, 303-311. [pdf]

Slaughter, V., Peterson, C. C., & Carpenter, M. (2008). Maternal talk about mental states and the emergence of joint visual attention. Infancy, 13, 640-659. [pdf]

Slaughter, V., Peterson, C. C., & Carpenter, M. (2009). Maternal mental state talk and infants' early gestural communication. Journal of Child Language, 36, 1053-1074. [pdf]

Tomasello, M., Call, J., Nagell, K., Olguin, R., & Carpenter, M. (1994). The learning and use of gestural signals by young chimpanzees: A trans-generational study. Primates, 35, 137-154. [pdf]

Tomasello, M., Call, J., Warren, J. A., Frost, G. T., Carpenter, M., & Nagell, K. M. (1997). The ontogeny of chimpanzee gestural signals: A comparison across groups and generations. Evolution of Communication, 1, 223-259. [pdf]

Tomasello, M., & Carpenter, M. (2005). Intention reading and imitative learning. In S. Hurley & N. Chater (Eds.), Perspectives on imitation: From neuroscience to social science: Vol. 2. Imitation, human development, and culture (pp. 133-148). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [pdf]

Tomasello, M., & Carpenter M. (2007). Shared intentionality. Developmental Science, 10, 121-125. [pdf]

Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 675-735. [pdf]

Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., & Liszkowski, U. (2007). A new look at infant pointing. Child Development, 78, 705-722. [pdf]

Vaish, A., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2009). Sympathy through affective perspective-taking and its relation to prosocial behavior in toddlers. Developmental Psychology, 45, 534-543. [pdf]

Vaish, A., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (in press). Young children selectively avoid helping people with harmful intentions. Child Development.

Carpenter, M., & Nielsen, M. (Eds.). (2008). Imitation in autism [Special issue]. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 101(3).

Nielsen, M., & Carpenter, M. (Eds.). (2008). Imitation in typically-developing children. [Special issue]. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 101 (4).