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Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology  
Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology  
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Senior Scientist,
Head of the Minerva Foundation research group on Social Origins of Cultural Cognition in Infancy

 
     
  Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

+49 (0) 341 3550 419

carpentereva.mpg.de
 
     
 
 
     
 
EDUCATION  
  Emory University: Ph.D., Psychology, 1995
M.A., Psychology, 1993
  University of Florida: B.A., French and Psychology, 1990
 
     
 
 
     
 
RESEARCH INTERESTS
  • understanding of others' mental states (intentions, attention, knowledge, and beliefs)
  • participation in shared activities (joint attention, gestural communication, imitation, collaboration)
  • typically-developing infants and young children, young children with autism, and apes
 
     
 
 
     
  PUBLICATIONS  
   
  Monographs  
     
 

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).

 
     
     
  Journal articles and book chapters  
     
 

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, 2nd 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.

 
     
     
  Edited special issues  
 


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).

 
 
 
     
   
     
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  Last updated:  11/17/09