The third aspect of the human intention-reading ability, central to first language acquisition.

Infants who understand that people manifest intentional behaviour may attend to and learn (by imitation) the behavioural means that others employ to signal their intentional state. For example, the child may imitate the use of the word rubber duck by an adult in directing attention to an object. However, this process does not just involve imitation, but the recognition that by uttering this phrase, the infant can perform a role reversal, thereby signalling a communicative intention: that the adult attend to the toy.