Abstract
The pairing of dynamical systems theory and complexity science brings novel concepts and methods to the study of infant motor development. Accordingly, this longitudinal case study presents a new approach to characterizing the dynamics of infant limb and vocalization behaviors. A single infant's vocalizations and limb movements were recorded from 51-days to 305-days of age. On each recording day, accelerometers were placed on all four of the infant's limbs and an audio recorder was worn on the child's chest. Using nonlinear time series analysis methods, such as recurrence quantification analysis and Allan factor, we quantified changes in the stability and multiscale properties of the infant's behaviors across age as well as how these dynamics relate across modalities and effectors. We observed that particular changes in these dynamics preceded or coincided with the onset of various developmental milestones. For example, the largest changes in vocalization dynamics preceded the onset of canonical babbling. The results show that nonlinear analyses can help to understand the functional co-development of different aspects of infant behavior.
Highlights
The human infant is a developing complex system that moves, perceives, explores, and interacts with its environment
The pairing of dynamical systems theory and complexity science brings novel concepts and methods to the study of infant motor development. This longitudinal case study presents a new approach to characterizing the dynamics of infant limb and vocalization behaviors
Using nonlinear time series analysis methods, such as recurrence quantification analysis and Allan factor, we quantified changes in the stability and multiscale properties of the infant’s behaviors across age as well as how these dynamics relate across modalities and effectors
Summary
The human infant is a developing complex system that moves, perceives, explores, and interacts with its environment. By the end of the first year, an infant has experienced 31,536,000 s of the dynamics and structure of its world. During this time, we see a rich, multidimensional developmental trajectory, including changes in the physical body and improved motor control (Goldfield, 1995; Thelen, 1995; Adolph and Berger, 2011) and changes to perceived and created acoustic structures corresponding to increasingly sophisticated communication with others (Vihman, 1996; Oller, 2000). Developmental psychology—perhaps more than any other branch of psychology—has had to grapple with the dynamic nature of human behavior and cognition. Each system is constantly changing as various interrelated skills develop and regularities emerge (Kugler and Turvey, 1987; Smith and Thelen, 2003, speak of soft assemblies)
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