Intermodal synchrony as a form of maternal responsiveness

Abstract

Research findings indicate that synchrony between events in two different modalities is a key concept in early social learning. Our longitudinal pilot study with 14 mother-child dyads is the first to support the idea that synchrony between action and language as a form of responsive behaviour in mothers relates to later language acquisition in their children. We conducted a fine-grained coding of multimodal behaviour within the dyad during an everyday diapering activity when the children were three and six months old. When the children attained 24 months, their mothers completed language surveys; this data was then related to the dyadic measures in early interaction. We propose a 'role-switching' model according to which it is important for three-month-olds to be exposed to multimodal input for a great deal of time, whereas for six-month-old infants, the mother should respond to the infant's attention and provide multimodal input when her child is gazing at her.

Verbs in Mothers’ Input to Six-Month-Olds: Synchrony between Presentation, Meaning, and Actions Is Related to Later Verb Acquisition

“…Beyond experimental research, benefits have also been observed in seminaturalistic studies: Rohlfing and Nomikou [ 25 ] suggested that the way in which mothers synchronize their vocal behavior with nonverbal actions constitutes a form of multimodal responsivity when this synchrony is provided in a timely way so that it fits with the infant’s gaze toward the mother. The authors found that the synchrony between action and language as a form of mothers’ multimodal responsive behavior at six months related to the child’s productive vocabulary at 24 months [ 25 ]. Findings were especially pronounced for the acquisition of verbs.…”

“…Second, we were interested in whether mothers’ behavior is regulated by the behavior of the infant. Based on the findings reported by [ 25 , 28 ], we were interested in whether they would be sensitive to the gaze direction of their infant. Third, we were interested in the relationship between the way verbs are embedded in the ongoing action and the children’s later language development.…”

“…Third, we were interested in the relationship between the way verbs are embedded in the ongoing action and the children’s later language development. Following up on our previous work [ 25 ], we assumed that the synchronous presentation of verbs and action needs to be enhanced by being coupled to infants’ gaze in order to function as the meaningful and rich input that could guide acquisition processes.…”

Rethinking Intrusiveness: Exploring the Sequential Organization in Interactions Between Infants and Mothers

“…More recently, observation-oriented infant studies have started looking at mother-infant communication through the lens of structural and conventional elements regulating adult communication. Thanks to the intrinsically dialogic nature of the methodology adopted, infants' behaviors (laughing, crying, gazing) have been identified not only (and always) as responses to the adult's move, but also as interactional initiatives (Trevarthen, 1977; Trevarthen and Hubley, 1978; Reddy and Uithol, 2015) upon which caregivers contingently act, treating them as turns in conversation-like sequences (Berducci, 2010; Rohlfing and Nomikou, 2014). Developmental research has long recognized the importance of early caregiver-infant exchanges structured as repetitive coordinated activity, so called “interaction formats” (Bruner, 1985) or social routines.…”

Crossmodal lifelong learning in hybrid neural embodied architectures

“…The connection between temperature sensation and social relatedness is argued to reflect neural “bindings” (Gallese and Lakoff 2005). The domain knowledge that is used later in life can be derived from the primitives that are encountered early in childhood, for example, in interactions between infants and parents, and is referred to as intermodal synchrony (Rohlfing and Nomikou 2014). As a further example, our own research shows that learning, which is based on crossmodal integration, like the integration of real sensory perception on low and on intermediate levels (as suggested for the superior colliculus in the brain), can enable both super-additivity and dominance of certain modalities based on the tasks (Bauer et al 2015).…”