The affective mechanism underlying joint attention and joint action in infancy and toddlerhood
Final Report Abstract
Newborns find themselves in a complex environment filled with various sensory impressions. In order to navigate this wealth of stimuli, already infants orient themselves toward other people. They initiate contact with those around them, spontaneously drawing attention to interesting things or offering help. Where does this interest in other people come from? Do children enjoy interacting with others? In the project 'Affective Mechanisms of Shared Attention and Joint Action in Early Childhood,' we examined how the intrinsic motivation to interact with others develops in early childhood and what effects this development has on early behavior and learning. Measuring intrinsic motivation in infants and toddlers poses a challenge. In our project, we studied emotional processes in 4- and 10-month-old infants in relation to shared attention (two people jointly observing a toy) and in 10-, 14-, and 24-month-old children during joint actions (two people performing an action together) using pupillometry, eye-tracking, facial muscle activity, and body posture measurement. In Project 1, we allowed infants to interact with a computer avatar through interactive eye-tracking. The person either followed the child's gaze or looked in a different direction. Children at 10 months of age, but not at 4 months, showed joy (i.e., their laughter muscle was more activated) when a person followed their gaze. The laughter muscle was also more activated when they saw that person again. Whether a person followed the children's gaze or chose a toy for themselves did not influence infants' learning performance. Older children are capable of more complex forms of social interaction, which can be accompanied by additional motivations. One form of social interaction which is of particular relevance is helping behavior. It is still unclear why children help: Do they help because they want to see others' needs being met? Or do children help because they generally enjoy being (interacting) with others? The results of Project 2 suggest that the helping behavior of ‚older‘ children stems from a specific interest in prosocial rather than generally social behaviors. Fourteen-month-old children become more emotionally involved when they see others being helped and show, measured through their body posture, more positive emotions when they help others compared to mere social interaction. These results provide novel insights into the underlying motivation of children to help others. At 14 months of age, the first steps toward prosocial motivation are taken, and this motivation to help others shows a different developmental trajectory than the motivation to interact with others. The studies in Project 2 document motivational diversity in early childhood, thereby contributing significantly to our understanding of prosocial behavior. The results of both projects indicate that the origins of social and prosocial motivation are found in the first two years of life. For the first time, we were able to systematically capture the emotional and cognitive foundations of shared attention and joint action with a representative sample size. Positive emotions are already an important motivator for social interaction in early childhood.
Publications
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Exploring the social origins of young children’s prosocial attention. Paper presented at the International Congress on Infant Studies (ICIS), Ottawa, Canada.
Becker, N.; Schmidt, D.; Thiele, M.; Haun, D. B. M.; Michel, C. & Hepach, R.
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Positive Affect and its relation to prosociality and joint action in toddlerhood. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development (ISSBD), Rhodos, Greece.
Becker, N.; Schmidt, D.; Gerdemann, S. C.; Michel, C. & Hepach, R.
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The development of affective mechanisms underlying the initiation of joint attention in infancy. Poster presented at the International Congress of Infant Studies (ICIS), Ottawa, Kanada.
Schmidt, D.; Becker, N.; Thiele, M.; Hepach, R. & Michel, C.
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Investigating the influence of affective facial expressions on infants’ object encoding in the first year of life. Poster presented at the 25. Fachgruppentagung Entwicklungspsychologie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie (DGPs).
Michel, C. Schmidt, D. & Thiele, M.
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Little eyes, big emotions: Pupillometry as a measure of infants‘ affect. Paper presented at the Fachgruppentagung Entwicklungspsychologie (EPSY), Berlin, Deutschland.
Schmidt, D.; Thiele, M.; Hepach, R.; Becker, N. & Michel, C.
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The effect ofgaze leading and gaze following on 9.5- to 11.5-month-old infants’ object encoding. Poster presented at the Fachgruppentagung Entwicklungspsychologie (EPSY), Berlin, Deutschland.
Schmidt, D.; Thiele, M.; Hepach, R.; Becker, N. & Michel, C.
