Musical dynamics in early triadic interactions: a case study

Let's make music as we normally do: A systematic review of how early natural musical interactions between infant and caregiver have been studied in research

Musical interactions between babies and their primary caregivers are very frequent during the early years of life and their impact on dyadic interaction and infants' development has garnered significant attention in recent literature. However, the difficulties that natural observations entail have meant that research often carries out methodological manipulations that have a significant impact on the phenomenon studied. In order to clarify how to investigate best natural musical interactions and the information that these can provide, we have carried out a systematic review to analyze the proposed scenarios and the variables analyzed in the studies published on such interactions between main caregivers and babies under three years old. We have screened 971 articles and yielded 27. We have found a higher prevalence in the literature of studies on singing interactions, between mothers and babies under 12 months of age. We have also been able to identify two extremes in terms of methodological structuring of natural interactions. Regarding the analysis variables, a few behaviors are repeated throughout the studies, being emotions, rhythmic behaviors and characterizations of the vocal emissions common between parents and babies. Synchrony is the dyadic variable with the most weight and also one of the preferred focuses of interest in the most recent literature that has undergone a shift of focus from characterization of musical interactions to the search for the mechanisms that underlie and make them specific.

An Ecological Approach to Conceptual Thinking in Material Engagement

Although post-cognitivist approaches have shaken the status quo by emphasising the dynamic interactions among the brain, the body, and the environment in cognition, mainstream psychological theories continue to view concepts as primarily representational or skull-bound mental phenomena. As a result, the dynamics of action and the possible impact of material culture on conceptual thinking are poorly understood. In this paper, we explore the process and meaning of conceptual thinking from a material engagement perspective. We argue that conceptual thinking is not a matter of forming representations in the head but something we do-a way of engaging with materiality. Conceptual thinking is conceptual thinging, namely a kind of unmediated practical knowledge that individuals put into play when they engage, in a general way, with and through the world. In this sense, we propose that conceptual thinking is instantiated in the dynamic coordination of bodily practices and artefacts in sociomaterial activities. To elucidate this perspective, we introduce seven principles defining conceptual thinking within an ecological-enactive framework of cognition.

Early triadic interactions in the first year of life: a systematic review on object-mediated shared encounters

Infants' early interactions with adults and everyday objects are key to socio-communicative development, but their emergence and development are still under debate. Aiming at describing the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches on triadicity during the first year of life, we conducted a systematic and qualitative review of recent literature. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we explored the scientific production of recent decades on triadic interactions up to 12 months of age. We initially screened 1943 items from which we obtained a final sample of 51 publications. Studies are usually conducted in laboratory settings, while ecological research is becoming increasingly common, especially in home settings. According to a thematic analysis of the data, we discussed the different perspectives on the origin and conceptualization of triadic interactions, and how they contribute to structuring and facilitating other developmental phenomena, such as the children's communicative gestures and uses of objects. Prior to the origin of intentional communication, adults facilitate early forms of triadicity based on fostering opportunities for infants' communication and engagement with both adults and materiality. However, there is a need for further research that explore the potential of early triadic interactions for parenting and early childhood education practises.

Intentional Understanding Through Action Coordination in Early Triadic Interactions

The ability to understand the behaviour of other people in intentional terms has been traditionally explained by resorting to inferential mechanisms that would allow individuals to access the internal mental states of others. In recent years, the second-person perspective has established itself as a theoretical alternative to traditional models. It argues that intentional understanding is an embodied, natural, and immediate process that occurs in situations such as face-to-face early dyadic interactions between adults and infants. In this article, we argue that the way in which the second-person perspective regards body and object is problematic. Based on psychological evidence that demonstrates the constitutive role of the body and objects for cognitive development, we propose the foundations of an ecological-enactive, semiotic and pragmatic model of intentional understanding. We argue that intentional understanding should be conceived as the skilful coordination of behaviours that subjects come to enact in interactive settings, following the dynamics of bodily and material practices that have acquired normative force over time.

What's an early triadic interaction made of? A methodological proposal to study the musical dynamics of interaction

Classical theories of intersubjectivity hold that the first interactions in which children participate are dyadic (adult-baby). However, thanks to the material shift that is taking place in the cognitive sciences, an increasing number of authors began to recognise the constitutive role that materiality has for cognition, from the very beginning of life. Interactions do not occur in a vacuum, but within a meaning-loaded material world that adults actively seek to bring to children. While in the field of dyadic interactions studies on communicative musicality have shown how interactive exchanges are structured and how that structure unfolds over time, little is known yet about the internal structure of early triadic interactions. In this paper, we propose a longitudinal, mixed and multilevel methodological framework aimed at describing the dynamics of the musical organisation of early triadic interactions between adults, babies and things, and its development over different timescales. We conclude that if researchers want to fully understand early triadic interactions and their musical structuring, further studies that take into account the cognitive relevance of things and the dynamics of our interactions with and through materiality are needed.

Interweaving social and manipulative development in early infancy: Some direction for infant caregiving

Early infancy has been neglect not having the best opportunities to promote social motor and cognitive development. The maturational concept considering young infants as passive beings provide a misguided view of the developmental process. The human infant is an active being from the very beginning of life. In the social and physical world, they can, by observing and imitating, perform complex actions involving different motor behaviours. In the present review we argue that imitation and manipulative actions are integrated in Expressive Action System (Reed, 1996) where baby-caregiver social interaction is the link between the use and exploration of objects in the world. We present evidence that neonatal imitation and manipulation activities are connected and thus, we propose stimulation practices based in seminal experimental designs where infants should be positioned in favourable postures to observe others acting in the world. This will have an impact on the way that early infants understand the social world and the chain of actions possible in this environment.

The development of categorisation and conceptual thinking in early childhood: methods and limitations

We present a systematic and qualitative review of academic literature on early conceptual development (0–24 months of age), with an emphasis on methodological aspects. The final sample of our review included 281 studies reported in 115 articles. The main aims of the article were four: first, to organise studies into sets according to methodological similarities and differences; second, to elaborate on the methodological procedures that characterise each set; third, to circumscribe the empirical indicators that different sets of studies consider as proof of the existence of concepts in early childhood; last, to identify methodological limitations and to propose possible ways to overcome them. We grouped the studies into five sets: preference and habituation experiments, category extension tasks, object sorting tasks, sequential touching tasks and object examination tasks. In the “Results” section, we review the core features of each set of studies. In the “Discussion” and “Conclusions” sections, we describe, for one thing, the most relevant methodological shortcomings. We end by arguing that a situated, semiotic and pragmatic perspective that emphasises the importance of ecological validity could open up new avenues of research to better understand the development of concepts in early childhood.

Getting away from the point: the emergence of ostensive gestures and their functions

Within developmental psychology, pointing gestures have received a great deal of attention, while ostensive gestures have been overlooked in terms of their emergence and intentionality. In a longitudinal and micro-genetic study with six children at 9, 11, and 13 months of age, we codified gesture production of children within second-by-second data frames. We identified 480 instances of gestures and categorised whether they were of ostensive, ostensive-indexical, or indexical nature. We specified the communicative function of each gesture by analysing the object involved and their circumstances of production. Data analysis include frequencies, binomial tests, proportion comparisons, and repeated measures ANOVA. We identified a phatic function in other-directed gestures, as well as exploratory and private functions in self-directed gestures. This has important implications for child development since ostensive gestures are easier to produce and to understand than pointing. The consideration of objects would be essential for defining the communicative function of gestures.