From the fundamental processing of human movement, through to the ability to interpret actions, infancy research is only now taking up the challenge of social cognition over a variety of cognitive areas. This special issue covers broad areas of social-cognitive development and builds a cohesive picture of the diversity within this thriving area of developmental psychology. This issue outlines and discusses changes in early development in terms of infant behaviour that may suggest how an infant with limited experience may nonetheless identify and attribute to other humans a privileged social-cognitive status.