The intersubjective mirror in infant learning and evolution of speech / Stein Braten.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bråten, Stein.

Series:

Advances in consciousness research ; v. 76.

Advances in consciousness research ; v. 76

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Interpersonal communication in infants.

Interpersonal communication in children.

Emotions in infants.

Emotions in children.

Psychology, Comparative.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (376 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : John Benjamins Pub. Co., c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Intersubjective Mirror in Infant Learning and Evolution of Speech illustrates how recent findings about primary intersubjectivity, participant perception and mirror neurons afford a new understanding of children's nature, dialogue and language. Based on recent infancy research and the mirror neurons discovery, studies of early speech perception, comparative primate studies and computer simulations of language evolution, this book offers replies to questions as: When and how may spoken language have emerged? How is it that infants so soon after birth become so efficient in their speech perception? What enables 11-month-olds to afford and reciprocate care? What are the steps from infant imitation and simulation of body movements to simulation of mind in conversation partners? Stein Bråten is founder and chair of the Theory Forum network with some of the world's leading infancy, primate and brain researchers who have contributed to his edited volumes for Cambridge University Press (1998) and John Benjamins Publishing Company (2007). (Series B).

Contents:

The Intersubjective Mirror in Infant Learning and Evolution of Speech

Editorial page

Title page

LCC data

Dedication page

Table of Contents

List of illustrations

List of tables

Preface (with acknowledgments)

Note

PART I. Background for questions and findings inviting a paradigm shift

From the last century history of ideas on children's nature and intersubjectivity

On Buber's distinction of I-You and I-It relations

In the beginning is the relation: Language in "primitive" cultures

In the beginning is the relation: The domain of child development

Mead's social philosophy as a basis for understanding symbolic interaction

When a vocal gesture becomes a significant symbol

Wittgenstein on meaning, language games and children's language learning

How language comes alive for children

On Buber, Mead and Wittgenstein transcending Leibnizian monads

From Leibnizian monads to Piaget's self-regulative mental structures

From Freud's attribution to infants of 'normal autism'

From Piaget's attribution of an egocentric perspective

Freudian and Piagetian views yielded some strange advices to parents

Object Relations Theory from Freud

Piaget's theory of ego-centricity requiring de-centration in order to allow for sociability

Some strange advices to parents and care-persons influenced by Freudian and Piagetian views

Recent findings on primary intersubjectivity confirm parents' experiences

Note: Some last century publications pertinent to a current paradigmatic shift

Recent related findings making a difference

When feeding situations invite participant perception

Identification of infant learning by other-centred participation

Can I understand you without drawing upon symbolic or conceptual representations?

On the discovery of mirror neurons.

More in detail on what led up to the discovery of a mirror neurons system in the human brain

On perceptual reversal and frame of reference transformation

Can we read our partners' minds without access to a constructed theory of mind?

An early model of simulation of mind in conversation partners

Returning to the nature of mind-reading in the light of the mirror neurons discovery

Questions about the relation between altercentric participation and we-centric space

When tongue muscles are activated upon listening to words

On mouth mirror neurons and imitation of gestures

Why is imitation in face-to-face situations more difficult than sitting side by side?

Introduction to child's steps to speech in ontogeny and questions about cultural evolution

From primary intersubjectivity, as defined by Trevarthen, to speech and mind-reading

(I) Newborns' imitation and protoconversation in the first weeks and months

(II) Object-oriented learning by altercentric participation and reading of intention

(III) Listener's altercentric perception and interlocutors' simulation of one another's act

On primary and higher order consciousness and Stern's specification of senses of self

The various senses of self according to Daniel Stern

Primary consciousness and the senses of an emergent self and of a core self

Secondary intersubjectivity, core consciousness, and the sense of the intersubjective sel

Tertiary intersubjectivity, verbal self, narrative self, and simulation and theory of mind

An intermediate comment on the different usages of the term "intersubjectivity"

Ontogenetic and sociogenetic dimensions of intersubjectivity: Conflicting views

Questions about phylogeny: Speculation about the selective pressure on early hominids

Questions about domains of cultural evolution.

Notes: On philosophy of the present and a paradox of time entailed by participant perception

Philosophy of the present, feelings and temporal dualities

On relativity and the mode of presentational immediacy

PART II. On the origin of (pre)speech and efficient infant learners

On language evolution and imitative learning

'Homo symbolicus'

Why computer simulations? Reply in terms of a tripartite scheme

When empirical clues about human evolution are lacking - tools for exploring assumptions

On alternative mechanisms of cultural learning and communication

Computer simulation models with and without natural selection mechanisms

Altruism or symmetric cooperation involved in language evolution?

A model of language-physiology co-evolution (Livingstone &amp

Fyfe)

A model of self-organizational emergence of sound systems in a population (de Boer)

A model of grammar acquisition by means of exemplars (Batali)

Syntax without Darwinian selection in a population of observational learners (Kirby)

On the critical role of the learning child

Innate basis for acquisition and articulation of speech?

Speculation on the selective advantage of learning by (m)other-centred mirroring

When asked to do what the facing instructor is doing

Face-to-face re-enactment of manual moves - a problem for subjects with autism

On the background for speculations about possible neurosocial architecture

May such an altercentric (mirror) system be operative already in human newborns?

On two computer models involving artificial 'neural network' simulations

Connectionist simulations comparing 'egocentric' and 'altercentric' networks (Bråten)

Computer simulation of imitation of arm-raising in a face-to-face situation (Billard &amp

Arbib).

On mirror reversal face-to-face and the open question about the role of the cerebellum

On cultural evolution of mother-centred learning

Do we have a firmer ground for speculating about pre-linguistic evolution?

Comparative studies of infant-adult interaction in humans and chimpanzees

Imitation of odd walking and "baby-sitting" posture

A mother's "medical care" prevents suffocation and releases holding behaviour

Two different "situational definitions" of a similar event

Moving with the mother's movement when back-riding

An object-oriented imitating attempt by a 22 months-old

Returning to the question of cultural transitions

No cultural learning in chimpanzees?

Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?

The bonobo Panbanisha subjected to a Theory-of-Mind deception test

On the evolution of the brain and of protolanguage

Precursory to current systems serving altercentric mirroring in phylogeny and ontogeny

On cultural learning and evolution: The selective advantage of altercentric learning

On the origin of humankind

How would infants fare when they could not ride on mothers' back and before carrying bags?

Mother nature according to Hrdy

Alloparents

Neonaticide

The hominin infant decentration hypothesis

The critical importance of distant learning and the pertinent discovery of mirror neurons

The hypothesis about decentration of the mirror system in human evolution

On prosocial behaviour in adult apes and young children

Moving with the (m)other's movements

Chimpanzees can offer consolation

monkeys cannot

Reports by Anna Freud and others on early prosocial behaviours in children

Various rationalistic perspectives on altruism

How to account for altruism in toddlers?

On shared pain-processing in self and other.

Shared pain-processing system pertaining to empathy, but not altruism

Recapitulation of episodes and definitions in accounting for early altruism

Pertinent for the evolution of (proto)language?

PART III. Intersubjective steps to speech and mind-reading in ontogeny

From newborns' imitation

The discovery of neonatal imitation

The discovery of protoconversation

Duet' before term with a prematurely born

When protoconversation was first revealed by film analyses

Characteristics and explanation of protoconversation

Explanation in terms of the virtual other postulate

On 'thirdness' and 'the space between'

On the musicality and dance-like movements in early infant-adult interplay

Infant sensitivity when protoconversation is perturbed

Criticism and design modification

Some earlier objections to layers of intersubjective attunement

Perturbation of infant-adult interplay due to postnatal depression

Strange situations': Infants react differently upon the return of the absent parent

From object-oriented joint attention and other-centred infant learning

Being hand-guided - actually or virtually - by the instructor

Virtually moving with the model's movements as if the learner were hand-guided

In front of the mirror: Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception

Children in front of the mirror according to Zazzo

On toddlers in front of the mirror in phenomenological light

When infants reciprocate spoon-feeding: Moving with the other's mouth movements

Some pertinent illustrations, definitions and propositions

Circular re-enactment of care-giving from e-motional memory

Neurosocial support of other-centred mirroring

The Dumb-bell experiment inviting mental simulation and manual realization

When a toddler imitates her model: From a 'now moment' to a 'moment of meeting'.

The creative nature of transitional phenomena and self-dialogue in early ontogeny.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-282-24533-3

9786612245336

90-272-8923-9

OCLC:

460639017