Peekaboo

Peekaboo (also spelled peek-a-boo) is a form of play played with an infant. To play, one player hides their face, pops back into the view of the other, and says Peekaboo!, sometimes followed by I see you! There are many variations: for example, where trees are involved, "Hiding behind that tree!" is sometimes added. Another variation involves saying "Where's the baby?" while the face is covered and "There's the baby!" when uncovering the face.

Peekaboo uses a joke-like structure: surprise, balanced with expectation.^[1]

Linguist Iris Nomikou has compared the game to a dialogue given the predictable back-and-forth pattern.^[2] Other researchers have called the game “protoconversation" – a way to teach an infant the timing and the structure of social exchanges.^[3]