Are young children biased to think about events in terms of goals? The data presented here suggest
that they are not. In this experiment, children were forced to choose whether to preserve the path
component of a directed motion event or the goal component of the event. Children were not biased
to specially preserve goal information; indeed, they were significantly more likely to imitate the path
component at the expense of the goal.
We suggested at the outset that directed motion events should lead to less goal bias in general because
of the nature of those events. In a functionally oriented event, such as using a tool or opening a
box, the goal state has a special status; the process steps are in the causal service of making the goal
happen, and representing a goal implies a particular sequence of actions. However, in directed motion
events, that causal connection is much looser; the motions must get one to the goal, but their specifics
are largely irrelevant. Representing the goal of a directed motion event implies very little about the
path and manner used to get there. Functionally oriented events place goals at the top of an event representation
hierarchy; directed motion events may be intrinsically more egalitarian with respect to
the representation of the various event components.