Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T03:49:49.354Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Spontaneous communication and infant imitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2017

Ross Buck
Ross Buck*
Affiliation:
Communication and Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269. ross.buck@uconn.eduhttp://comm.uconn.edu/people/faculty/buck/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Infant behavior is viewed in a social-communicative context centered on the phenomenon of spontaneous communication. Symbolic communication is learned and culturally structured, intentional, consists of symbols, and is propositional in content. In contrast, spontaneous communication is innate in both its sending (display) and receiving (preattunement) aspects, non-intentional, consists of signs, and is non-propositional or emotional in content. It underlies infant imitation, interactional synchrony, primary intersubjectivity, emotional empathy, and mirror neurons; and it is associated with oxytocin.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e385
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Braten, S. & Trevarthen, C. (2007) From infant intersubjectivity and participant movements to simulation and conversation in cultural common sense. In: On being moved: From mirror neurons to empathy, ed. Braten, S., pp. 21–33. John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Buck, R. (1984) The communication of emotion. Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Buck, R. (2014) Emotion: A biosocial synthesis. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Buck, R. & Duffy, R. (1980) Nonverbal communication of affect in brain-damaged patients. Cortex 16:351–62.Google Scholar
Buck, R. & Van Lear, C. A. (2002) Verbal and nonverbal communication: Distinguishing symbolic, spontaneous, and pseudo-spontaneous nonverbal behavior. Journal of Communication 52:522–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Condon, W. S. (1982) Cultural microrhythms. In: Interaction rhythms: Periodicity in communicative behavior, ed. Davis, M., pp. 53–76. Human Sciences Press.Google Scholar
Condon, W. S. & Sander, L. W. (1974) Neonate movement is synchronized with adult speech. Integrated participation and language acquisition. Science 183:99.Google Scholar
Decety, J. & Jackson, P. L. (2004) The functional architecture of human empathy. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews 3:71–100. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1534582304267187.Google Scholar
de Waal, F. B. M. (2007) The ‘Russian doll’ model of empathy and imitation. In: On being moved: From mirror neurons to empathy, ed. Braten, S., pp. 35–48. John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Feldman, R. (2012) Parent-infant synchrony: A bio-behavioral model of mutual influences in the formation of affiliative bonds. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 77(2):42–51. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.2011.00660.x.Google Scholar
Heyes, C. (2010) Mesmerising mirror neurons. Neuroimage 51:789–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hickok, G. (2009) Eight problems for the mirror neuron theory of action understanding in monkeys and humans. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21:1229–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keysers, C. (2011) The empathic brain. Social Brain.Google Scholar
Keysers, C., Kaas, J. H. & Gazzola, V. (2010) Somatosensation in social perception. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 11:417–28.Google Scholar
Mukamel, R., Ekstrom, A. D., Kaplan, J., Iacoboni, M. & Fried, I. (2010) Single-neuron responses in humans during execution and observation of actions. Current Biology 20:750–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shamay-Tsoory, S. G., Fischer, M., Dvash, J., Harari, H., Perach-Bloom, N. & Levkovitz, Y. (2009) Intranasal administration of oxytocin increases envy and schadenfreude (gloating). Biological Psychiatry 66(9):864–70. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.06.009.Google Scholar
Trevarthen, C. (1979) Communication and cooperation in early infancy: A description of primary intersubjectivity. In: Before speech: The beginning of interpersonal communication, ed. Bullowa, M., pp. 321–47. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Trevarthen, C. & Aitken, K. J. (2001) Infant intersubjectivity: Research, theory, and clinical applications. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 42(1):3–48. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-7610.00701.Google Scholar
Tucker, D. M. (1981) Lateral brain function, emotion, and conceptualization. Psychological Bulletin 89:19–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed