Abstract
In this review article, we describe the mobile paradigm, a method used for more than 50 years to assess how infants learn and remember sensorimotor contingencies. The literature on the mobile paradigm demonstrates that infants below 6 months of age can remember the learning environment weeks after when reminded periodically and integrate temporally distributed information across modalities. The latter ability is only possible if events occur within a temporal window of a few days, and the width of this required window changes as a function of age. A major critique of these conclusions is that the majority of this literature has neglected the embodied experience, such that motor behavior was considered an equivalent developmental substitute for verbal behavior. Over recent years, simulation and empirical work have highlighted the sensorimotor aspect and opened up a discussion for possible learning mechanisms and variability in motor preferences of young infants. In line with this recent direction, we present a new embodied account on the mobile paradigm which argues that learning sensorimotor contingencies is a core feature of development forming the basis for active exploration of the world and body. In addition to better explaining recent findings, this new framework aims to replace the dis-embodied approach to the mobile paradigm with a new understanding that focuses on variance and representations grounded in sensorimotor experience. Finally, we discuss a potential role for the dorsal stream which might be responsible for guiding action according to visual information, while infants learn sensorimotor contingencies in the mobile paradigm.
Highlights
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, young infants were viewed as unformed versions of adults whose learning capacities were limited due, in part, to underdeveloped prefrontal structures (Hodel, 2018) and a lack of language (McGraw, 1932; Twitchell, 1965)
A recent critique of the replicability of this learning effect by Jacquey et al (2020a) pointed to the publication failures of several research groups due to unreliable learning effects. They noted that learning and memory of infants in the mobile paradigm were inferred from observational techniques, with an imprecise operational definition of kicking behavior
We argue that the variance and multiple factors that affect the emergence of new motor behavior are keys to unfolding the mobile paradigm and examining how young infants explore themselves and the world around them
Summary
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, young infants were viewed as unformed versions of adults whose learning capacities were limited due, in part, to underdeveloped prefrontal structures (Hodel, 2018) and a lack of language (McGraw, 1932; Twitchell, 1965). Her 1.5-month-old son had a mobile that she always used to distract him On that day, she remembered her grandmother’s saying, ‘‘Oh, darling, Embodied Account on Mobile Paradigm if you could only harness the energy of a 2 or 3-year-old to run the windmills in Holland’’ She remembered her grandmother’s saying, ‘‘Oh, darling, Embodied Account on Mobile Paradigm if you could only harness the energy of a 2 or 3-year-old to run the windmills in Holland’’ She observed that her son increased his kicking rate when his leg was tied to the mobile and stopped kicking when it was not The observation of her son’s behavior led her to test the idea that young infants could learn new behavior by adjusting their actions to gain a reward. We aim to review studies that have relied on the mobile paradigm to assess learning, motor development, memory, and cognition in early infancy, starting with a description of the core mobile paradigm itself and ending with presenting a different interpretation of the paradigm, one that focuses more on the embodied experiences of the infant and her movements
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