Further Evidence for Continuity in Infants' Joint Attention Development

Abstract

Infants · Joint attention development · Triadic interactions In their qualitative analysis of mother-infant interaction across four time points from 4 to 12 months, de Barbaro, Johnson, and Deak [this issue] identify changes in infants’ sensorimotor activity and object exploration and an increase in elaborate tri-adic social exchanges over time. We will discuss further evidence for continuity in infants’ joint attention development from previous quantitative longitudinal studies and from studies examining infants’ object processing in triadic interactions as an indicator of infant attention and as an important function of triadic exchanges in early infancy. From their longitudinal observations of five mother-infant dyads over the first year of infancy, de Barbaro and colleagues draw the conclusion that social cognitive and joint attention development should be regarded as a ‘‘continuous product of sen-sorimotor development,’’ rather than indicating a ‘‘social revolution’’ caused by in-fants’ sudden understanding of others as intentional agents by the end of the first year [de Barbaro et al., this issue]. We agree with the authors that the term ‘‘social revolu-tion’’ does not properly describe infants’ social cognitive development since all as-pects of social cognition, including infants’ notion of other people as intentional agents, seem to develop gradually rather than abruptly [Striano & Reid, 2006]. In our commentary, we will first discuss evidence for continuous development of triadic interactions stemming from studies assessing infants’ very early developing sensitivity for triadic interactions [Striano, Stahl, Cleveland, & Hoehl, 2007] and from quantitative longitudinal data on a variety of triadic interaction skills [Striano, Stahl, & Cleveland, 2007]. Then we will focus on infants’ object processing in triadic inter-actions as assessed by behavioral and neurophysiological methods [Cleveland, Schug, & Striano, 2007; Cleveland & Striano, 2007; Parise, Reid, Stets, & Striano, 2008;