I’m really curious about this. Ever since she began talking over a year ago, my three year old daughter seems to interact with her dolls and even with pictures in a book as if they were “real” – but she recognizes that a big person like me needs to be on hand to animate them / give them a voice.
For example, when she wants to play, she’ll shove one of her dolls into my hands and insist that I “animate” it. When I do so, she really intensively talks and interacts with it, and even brings me (the daddy) into the conversation to talk to the doll (usually to enlist my help to browbeat it into doing things her way).
She also plays by herself of course, and talks to the dolls and makes believe they’re talking to each other.
So how “real” are the dolls to her? Is the difference between people and things only one of degree? (That is, some of her surroundings need extra help being animated, some things don’t.) Or does she really recognize that things are things and not self-aware creatures in their own right?
