Understanding Infants: Current problems and issues

Description

Understanding Infants: Current problems and issues, Workshop.
TALK "A CHALLENGE TO THE JOINTNESS OF TOGETHERNESS: ANOTHER LOOK AT JOINT ATTENTION"
Ingar Brinck/Vasu Reddy
I will present what might be new aspects on a familiar topic. The topic is joint attention in early dyadic and triadic interaction and the aim is to determine what the jointness of attention, action, etc. fundamentally concerns.
In the last two decades there has been a strong interest in the notion of joint attention, not merely in developmental psychology, the field where the research on joint attention has its origin, but in fields that investigate the social dimension of human existence and aim to explain phenomena such as joint action, collective intentionality, intentional/referential communication, intersubjectivity, self-consciousness, cooperation, plural agency (‘We’), and the emergence of social institutions (e.g. philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive science, sociology, psychology, the arts). Joint attention by many is held to constitute the core of typically human forms of interaction and to epitomise togetherness.
I will look into this issue from an empirically informed, theoretical perspective, taking my starting-point in some observations made while (for another purpose) watching a series of video-taped episodes of parent-infant interaction in the home environment. The observations suggest that joint attention in fact does not constitute the paradigmatic form of triadic interaction, but such interaction equally occurs in the absence of attentional and emotional engagement ⸻ as it seems, without changes to the over-all goal of the agents (to interact with each other, and do so with respect to a shared object) or the status of the subjects as independent and equal collaborative partners, and while retaining the same success rate. Yet, findings in developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience apparently show that the experience of being addressed in the second person is developmentally crucial and has broad implications, e.g., for the development of self-consciousness and self-regulation, cooperation, and social cognition at large. To resolve this dilemma I will suggest further analyses of the behaviour associated with the respective styles or forms of triadic interaction and discuss what it is about mutual addressing and emotional engagement that would make them essential for developing functioning social skills. The ultimate aim is to make clear, on the one hand, what matters for togetherness and jointness, and on the other, whether interaction that lacks first-person personal investment and recognition of the other as a second person nevertheless can afford the adequate skills and cognition for everyday social life.

Period	2017 May 2 → 2017 May 3
Event type	Workshop
Location	Portsmouth, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International