How do infants understand the goals of others' actions? It has been proposed that actionunderstanding results from a mechanism whereby an observed action is mapped onto the observer's own motor representation of that action. However, direct evidence of the matching process in early infancy is difficult to find. Here we show the developmental correspondence between action prediction and motor ability by comparing gazing and grasping responses to interesting objects in 4-to 10-month-old infants and adults. The onset of infants' ability to predict the goal of others' action was found to be synchronized with the onset of their own ability to perform that action. moreover, there was correspondence relationship between action-prediction ability and motor ability of same action. our findings indicate that the ability to predict others' action goals requires a corresponding motor ability, providing ontogenetic evidence for a direct matching process by a mirror neuron system.

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Despite its essential role in human coexistence, the developmental origins and progression of sympathy in infancy are not yet fully understood. We show that preverbal 10-month-olds manifest sympathetic responses, evinced in their preference for attacked others according to their evaluations of the respective roles of victim, aggressor, and neutral party. In Experiment 1, infants viewing an aggressive social interaction between a victim and an aggressor exhibited preference for the victim. In Experiment 2, when comparing the victim and the aggressor to a neutral object, infants preferred the victim and avoided the aggressor. These findings indicate that 10-month-olds not only evaluate the roles of victims and aggressors in interactions but also show rudimentary sympathy toward others in distress based on that evaluation. This simple preference may function as a foundation for full-fledged sympathetic behavior later on.

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