SIG Event: Feedback Loops in Infancy: From Action to Interaction to Learning

Catherine Tamis-LeMonda, Ph.D.
Department of Applied Psychology, New York University

Learning is an embodied and socially-embedded process. Infants actively navigate a world of cultural artifacts and social partners. As they do so, they create rich opportunities for learning. In this talk, I present findings from several studies of 1- to 3-year old infants and
their caregivers to show how infants’ momentto moment interactions with the objects, places, and spaces of the home environment feed into learning in areas of language and play. I draw on findings from video recorded observations of infants from diverse US and international samples to illustrate feedback loops in learning—how infant action leads to social interaction which in turn propels learning. Across studies, I spotlight three key principles that guide our work on how child, caregiver, and context contribute to learning:
(1) the active infant exuberantly engages with the objects, spaces, and people in the environment; (2) in turn, infants’ behaviors of object play, walking, and talking elicit multimodal, contingent responses from caregivers that extend infant attention and support word learning; and (3) the environmental materials, spaces, and activities of everyday life shape infants’ social experiences and learning opportunities.

Also Sponsored by the Departments of Psychology, Linguistics, and Human Development