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4 Infants enjoying 'protoconversations 1 . (A) Laura, 3 months old, at home in Scotland is attentive to her mother's talking. Her 3-year-old sister wants to join in, and father watches proudly from the side. At 6 weeks, in the University of Edinburgh Laura smiles and coos at her mother, whose reactions can be seen in a mirror. (Photos by Penelope and John Hubley and ColwynTrevarthen) (B) Hande, 11 weeks old, is Turkish, photographed in Holland with her father. She watches her father's face, smiles, moves hand, mouth and tongue with a serious face as if talking, and looks away while she 'thinks'. (Photos from a video by Saskia van Rees of the "Body Language Foundation", www.stichtinglichaamstaal.nl).
Source publication
This chapter introduces the argument that emotions are proactive in the human mind. It suggests that the evolution of the social functions of emotions and inter-subjective behaviours in infancy lead to cultural learning and language acquisition. Emotions associated with the three different orientations of the body to experiences - to the self, towa...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... analyses of the protoconversations with two-month-olds (Figure 4) has proved that humans are born with a dual representation of self and other that permits them to enter into immediate relation with one another's emotions in 'dialogic closure' (Brâten, 1988(Brâten, ,1992). The rudiments of such a capacity may be evident immediately after birth, even in a 2-month-premature infant (Trevarthen, 1993;Malloch, 1999). ...
Context 2
... states of withdrawal from present activity into imagination and memory, which are essential features of intelligent consciousness (Donald, 2001), do seem to occur in very young infants (Figure 4). By three or four months a baby may be stubbornly drawn into 'thinking' states that resist others' temptations to communicate ( Figure 6). ...
Citations
... Social or relational emotions belong to the causes of consciousness, according to Trevarthen (2005a). This may apply to loneliness too and contrasts with the long-standing interpretations of loneliness as an outcome of cognitive processes, that is, of individuals' awareness of their relational (quantitative and/or qualitative) deficits, which, in turn, stems from the perception of the dissonance between the expected and the real level of relationships (e.g., Peplau and Perlman, 1982). ...
... Regarding loneliness, if infants have feelings like ours (Trevarthen, 2005a), they are bound to have this experience, although they cannot use language to convey it. This may be one reason why their loneliness is neglected by researchers. ...
... Private thinking and social communicating co-exist in corresponding and complementary ways from the beginning of life. The minds of mother and infant are together while having their separate recollections and purposes and while sharing these reflective, meditative states (Hobson, 2002;Trevarthen, 2005a). I would call this shared experience of mother and infant solitude à deux and I suggest that, if sympathy means respect for the other person's autonomy even when there is disapproval (Trevarthen, 2005c), it is the sympathetic mother that sets the stage for her child's life-long capacity to benefit from solitude. ...
This article is part of the Research Topic:
"Intersubjectivity: Recent Advances in Theory, Research, and Practice"
- Research Topic Editors: Colwyn Trevarthen, Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt, Emese Nagy, Theano Kokkinaki
https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/15171/intersubjectivity-recent-advances-in-theory-research-and-practice#overview
... Both are organised within the same narrative experiences, which gives them their tight relationship. It is through this narrative organisation we can understand language as tightly coupled to feelings, and its movement in music or poetry (Trevarthen, 1995(Trevarthen, , 2005. Scottish Englightenment philosopher Thomas Reid highlighted the importance of this affective aspect of language, which he called 'natural signs', as more powerful than the technical meaning of 'artificials signs' of the words placed on top -"Artificial signs signify, but they do not express; they speak to the understanding, as algebraical characters may do, but the passions, the affections, and the will, hear them not: these continue dormant and inactive, till we speak to them in the language of nature, to which they are all attention and obedience." ...
... The importance of narrative in solo projects and communication also makes it integral to the development of our understanding of the world, understanding of others, and understanding of ourselves (Bruner, 1990;Zahavi, 2007). The patterned nature of arousal and energy, inherent to narrative architecture, gives structure to the process of emotional regulation of all forms of movement and meaning-making in intersubjective states (Damásio, 1999;Trevarthen, 2005). Its predicable, regular patterns enable the coordination of sympathy between individuals in the shared time of vocal and motor expressions of affect, interest, and intention (Delafield-Butt & Trevarthen, 2015). ...
We review evidence of non-verbal, embodied narratives in human infancy to better understand their form and function as generators of common experience, regulation, and learning. We examine their development prior to the onset of language, with a view to improve understanding of narrative as regular motifs or schemas of early experience in both solitary and social engagement. Embodied narratives are composed of regular patterns of interest, arousal, affect, and intention that yield a characteristic four-part structure of (i) introduction, (ii) development, (iii) climax, and (iv) resolution. Made with others these form co-created shared acts of meaning, and are parsed in time with discreet beginnings and endings that allow a regular pattern to frame and give predictive understanding for prospective regulation (especially important within social contexts) that safely returns to baseline again. This characteristic pattern, co-created between infant and adult from the beginning of life, allows the infant to contribute to, and learn, the patterns of its culture. We conclude with a view on commonalities and differences of co-created narrative in non-human primates, and discuss implications of disruption to narrative co-creation for developmental psychopathology.
... The subsequent engagement allowed the narrative to materialise. Trevarthen (1993Trevarthen ( , 2005 explains that language is invented in the routine experience-it is a tool fabricated from collective human fantasy and learned by sharing. Sharing, in this case, is the result of interpretation of meanings (usually studied in the adult-child relationship) throughout the interaction. ...
Human beings are constituted through the presence and actions of others whom they encounter during the course of their lives. We are constituted by all the interactions we enact in different social contexts and through all the meanings we create together about the experiences we share. Therefore, in order to understand the ontogenesis of cognition, one must understand how meanings are constructed with the others we encounter. A substantial amount of research has addressed how infants and toddlers-when in interaction with adults-are able to understand others' actions and engage in social dynamics by coordinating and regulating adults' actions. This knowledge has advanced the field of developmental psychology significantly. However, not many efforts have been made to understand the origins of social cognition via peer interactions or explore how peer interactions constitute cognitive development. In this theoretical article, we use the microanalysis of three peer interaction episodes to discuss how the constitutive role of peer experiences can be analysed beyond isolated individual processes. The encounter, the situation and the social and relational process are used as a unit of analysis. This analytical approach considers the contributions and insights provided by the enactive theory, which offers a perspective to understand the processes of cognitive development in interactive experiences.
... Brunner considers that some human beings are born with the innate gift of intersubjectivity (Bruner, 2008). A mutual awareness (Trevarthen, 2005) or a shared space (Bruner, 1998) guides the possibility of perceiving the Other. Marková (2003) states the existence of similar mechanisms for knowing oneself and knowing the Other. ...
... Marková (2003) states the existence of similar mechanisms for knowing oneself and knowing the Other. The mere existence of Other can trigger sympathy or antagonism, but their presence is always admitted (Trevarthen, 2005). The dyad I-Other implies that, although it can be asymmetrical (Marková, 2003), both participants in the dyad contribute to creating a unique shared experience. ...
... The dyad I-Other implies that, although it can be asymmetrical (Marková, 2003), both participants in the dyad contribute to creating a unique shared experience. The studies with infants show that either the caregiver/parent or the baby can start or end interaction of sounds, words, gestures, and gazes (Trevarthen, 2005(Trevarthen, , 2004Bruner, 1998). Since the early moments of life, subjects have been building their knowledge by interacting with significant others. ...
Jaan Valsiner has been pivotal in my research endeavor. His contributions to the educational field are enormous. He has invited researchers to focus on the individual and the context from an interdisciplinary perspective leading to inspiring ideas that can materialize in novel ways. As an advocate of interdisciplinarity, he has gathered researchers and practitioners together in the Kitchen research group. This weekly innovative global online meeting sees attendees sharing knowledge and experience, thus expanding research borders and adding a global perspective to the presenters' research. Kitchen Seminar is an academic activity born in a university kitchen and evolved into a symbolic online space where novel and experienced researchers can feel at home and free to discuss ideas. When asked to contribute to this issue, I aimed to write a pilot study in the Kitchen fashion, a paper that can trigger debate and discussion and be enriched by different perspectives. In this piece, I will attempt to explore how two subjects, a schoolgirl and a university student from Argentina, perceived their teachers’ social presence during the switch to emergency remote learning and teaching during the 2020s global health crises from cultural psychology of semiotic mediation perspective. When the usual school practice was suspended, and the screen became a ubiquitous school, the relationship between students and teachers turned into a technology-mediated one. After a brief theoretical discussion, the analysis of the subjects’ narratives can hopefully offer a glimpse of the ways intersubjectivity operated in remote teaching and learning during the period under analysis. I hope many researchers will provide insightful comments that will enrich this work following the Kitchen manners.
... Widely used paradigms to study empathy involve pain perception (Lamm et al. 2011). Researchers documented that human (including infants) and non-human mammals would demonstrate emotional arousal and social responses in the presence of other's suffering and that such mammals may take actions to attempt to reduce the other's pain (Burkett et al. 2016;Trevarthen 2004). Despite these findings, how this encounter with pain leads to positive motivation and prosocial behaviors remains unclear. ...
To feel other’s pain would elicit empathy. Some theorists hypothesized that observing other’s pain may activate the primary emotion of maternal care instinct, which may function as a precursor of empathy. The maternal care instinct and empathy share the same genetic background and neuroendocrine underpinnings. An extensive body of research has shown that maternal behaviors relate to the oxytocinergic system, which has a strong influence on empathy. These studies suggest that the maternal care instinct may mediate the effect of oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) on empathy. To provide evidence for this mediation, we used the subscale of CARE in Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) to measure the maternal care instinct and tested two OXTR single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs53576 and rs13316193, in 880 high school participants (588 females, 292 males; Mage = 16.51 years old, SD = 0.65). Results showed that the genotype of rs13316193 was indirectly associated with empathy via CARE, suggesting a mediating role of CARE in the pathway from OXTR to empathy. These findings may contribute to an understanding of how empathy emerges when one witnesses another person in pain.
... Several behavioural studies highlighted the early development of emotional contagion in humans that is largely reflected in emotional mimicry (Decety, 2010;Leppänen & Nelson, 2008;Panksepp & Panksepp, 2013). For example, newborns and infants become vigorously distressed by another cry (Dondi et al., 1999;Trevarthen, 2005) and, from the second half of the first year of life, children become able to identify and mimic discrete facial expressions of emotion such as smiles (Leppänen & Nelson, 2008). The mechanism allowing a child to reflexively mimic a smile is thought to be the same allowing the reflexive mimicry of yawning (Dimberg et al., 2000). ...
Yawning is a primitive and stereotyped motor action involving orofacial, laryngeal, pharyngeal, thoracic and abdominal muscles. Contagious yawning, an involuntarily action induced by viewing or listening to others' yawns, has been demonstrated in human and several non‐human species. Previous studies with humans showed that infants and preschool children, socially separated during video experiments, were not infected by others' yawns. Here, we tested the occurrence of yawn contagion in 129 preschool children (ranging from 2.5 to 5.5 years) belonging to five different classes by video recording them in their classrooms during the ordinary school activities. As it occurs in adult humans, children of all ages were infected by others' yawns within the 2 min after the perception of the stimulus. The yawn contagion occurred earlier than previously thought. For children, it appears that the natural social setting is more conducive to yawn contagion than the inherently artificial experimental approach. Moreover, children's gender did not affect the level of contagious yawning. The neural, emotional and behavioural traits of preschool children are probably not sufficiently mature to express variability between boys and girls; nevertheless, children appeared to be already well equipped with the 'neural toolkit' necessary for expressing yawn contagion.
... Κουγιουμουτζάκης και συν., 2007). Ωστόσο, όπως έχουμε αναφέρει ήδη, ο Trevarthen προτιμά τη χρήση του όρου συμπάθεια από ό,τι ενσυναίσθηση και θεωρεί ότι οι σύντροφοι του βρέφους, καθοδηγούμενοι από μια συμπαθητική αποτίμηση των κινήτρων και των συναισθημάτων του βρέφους, προσαρμόζουν ανάλογα τη συμπεριφορά τους (Trevarthen, 2005). Eπιπλέον, σύγχρονες αναπτυξιακές μελέτες βασισμένες στη θεωρία της έμφυτης διυποκειμενικότητας έχουν δείξει ότι τα νεογέννητα, εκτός από φωνοποιήσεις, εκφράσεις προσώπου, μη λεκτικούς ήχους, κινήσεις σώματος αλλά και συνδυασμούς των παραπάνω που τους επιδεικνύονται από ενήλικες, μπορούν να μιμηθούν και τη συναισθηματική τους κατάσταση (Kokkinaki, 1998. ...
Στο παρόν άρθρο συζητάμε το άλυτο προς το παρόν θέμα της ανάπτυξης της ενσυναίσθησης στους διδύμους. Στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο περιγράφουμε σύντομα τους ορισμούς της ενσυναίσθησης, τη διάκρισή της από συγγενείς έννοιες καθώς και ορισμένες αντιπροσωπευτικές ψυχολογικές θεωρίες για την ενσυναίσθηση. Στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο κάνουμε μια συνοπτική περιγραφή των ψυχολογικών μελετών πάνω στην ενσυναίσθηση στους διδύμους. Συγκεκριμένα, παρουσιάζουμε ευρήματα από συγκριτικές μελέτες διδύμων και μη διδύμων από την εμβρυϊκή,
τη βρεφική, την παιδική, την εφηβική και την ενήλικη ζωή τους. Πρόκειται αφενός για κλινικές μελέτες που εστιάζουν στο ρόλο της κληρονομικότητας και του περιβάλλοντος στην ανάπτυξη της ενσυναίσθησης και αφετέρου για αναπτυξιακές μελέτες που βασίζονται στην ψυχαναλυτική θεώρηση της έννοιας της ενσυναίσθησης καθώς και στη μελέτη της υπό το πρίσμα της Θεωρίας της Έμφυτης Διυποκειμενικότητας. Στη Συζήτηση συνοψίζουμε τα παραπάνω, εντοπίζουμε τα κενά της έρευνας για την ενσυναίσθηση σε δίδυμα
παιδιά και κάνουμε μια σύντομη αναφορά στην αξία ανάπτυξής της από την αρχή της ζωής σε οικογενειακό πλαίσιο και αργότερα μέσω παρεμβατικών προγραμμάτων σε σχολικό πλαίσιο. Τέλος, επισημαίνουμε την ανάγκη περαιτέρω διερεύνησης του ευρέως φάσματος των όρων που σχετίζονται με αυτήν.
... Un bebé recién nacido puede actuar de manera expresiva, mirar y escuchar expresiones comprensivas de un cuidador o compañero atento, para luego reaccionar o responder a estas expresiones de manera imitativa [22]. Ambos actores, adultos y bebés, se comportan rítmicamente y ajustan la sincronización y secuencia de sus movimientos para moverse juntos en el diálogo, alternando y sincronizando movimientos para generar ciclos de afirmación y aprehensión, o dirigirse y responder, celebrando fluctuaciones en el esfuerzo y el disfrute, compartiendo las emociones cariñosas del otro [36]. ...
... The subsequent engagement allowed the narrative to materialise. Trevarthen (1993Trevarthen ( , 2005 explains that language is invented in the routine experience-it is a tool fabricated from collective human fantasy and learned by sharing. Sharing, in this case, is the result of interpretation of meanings (usually studied in the adult-child relationship) throughout the interaction. ...
Human beings are constituted through the presence and actions of others whom they encounter during the course of their lives. We are constituted by all the interactions we enact in different social contexts and through all the meanings we create together about the experiences we share. Therefore, in order to understand the ontogenesis of cognition, one must understand how meanings are constructed with the others we encounter. A substantial amount of research has addressed how infants and toddlers-when in interaction with adults-are able to understand others' actions and engage in social dynamics by coordinating and regulating adults' actions. This knowledge has advanced the field of developmental psychology significantly. However, not many efforts have been made to understand the origins of social cognition via peer interactions or explore how peer interactions constitute cognitive development. In this theoretical article, we use the microanalysis of three peer interaction episodes to discuss how the constitutive role of peer experiences can be analysed beyond isolated individual processes. The encounter, the situation and the social and relational process are used as a unit of analysis. This analytical approach considers the contributions and insights provided by the enactive theory, which offers a perspective to understand the processes of cognitive development in interactive experiences.
... Likewise, separation from the mother at birth may introduce unexpected and unfamiliar sensory experiences which activate alarm and defensive systems through the intermediary of the innate connection system based in the SC. The "natural preferences" [17,31] towards the sound, sight and scent of the mother are not satisfied. ...
... The work of both Stern and Trevarthen focuses on articulating the emotional subtleties and musical qualities of relational communications in the richly intersubjective world of the infant. For Trevarthen, the new-born is not only making experience but is actively 'seeking' relational exploration [31]. Indeed, he argues that the quality of those early intersubjective signals demonstrates that the infant is primed to seek and discover as well as to make and use experience. ...
... Heightened affective moments, both positive and negative, promote learning through enhanced salience and serve to organise patterns of response. Early bonding and attachment experiences have lifelong consequences in shaping emotional strengths and vulnerabilities [25][26][27] and early neglect, notably during the first two years of life, has a profound impact on the organisation and function of developing brain systems [31]. The infant's social and emotional experiences in relationship help to support the complex regulatory nature of affective states [50] and provide a scaffold for the maturation of neural organisation. ...
Underlying any complex relational intersubjectivity there is an inherent urge to connect, to have proximity, to engage in an experience of interpersonal contact. The hypothesis set out here is that this most basic urge to connect is dependent on circuits based in three main components: the midbrain superior colliculi (SC), the midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG), and the mesolimbic and mesocortical dopamine systems originating in the midbrain ventral tegmental area. Firstly, there is orienting towards or away from interpersonal contact, dependent on approach and/or defensive/withdrawal areas of the SC. Secondly, there is an affective response to the contact, mediated by the PAG. Thirdly, there is an associated, affectively-loaded, seeking drive based in the mesolimbic and mesocortical dopamine systems. The neurochemical milieu of these dopaminergic systems is responsive to environmental factors, creating the possibility of multiple states of functioning with different affective valences, a polyvalent range of subjectively positive and negative experiences. The recognition of subtle tension changes in skeletal muscles when orienting to an affectively significant experience or event has clinical implications for processing of traumatic memories, including those of a relational/interpersonal nature. Sequences established at the brainstem level can underlie patterns of attachment responding that repeat over many years in different contexts. The interaction of the innate system for connection with that for alarm, through circuits based in the locus coeruleus, and that for defence, based in circuits through the PAG, can lay down deep patterns of emotional and energetic responses to relational stimuli. There may be simultaneous sequences for attachment approach and defensive aggression underlying relational styles that are so deep as to be seen as personality characteristics, for example, of borderline type. A clinical approach derived from these hypotheses, Deep Brain Reorienting, is briefly outlined as it provides a way to address the somatic residues of adverse interpersonal interactions underlying relational patterns and also the residual shock and horror of traumatic experiences. We suggest that the innate alarm system involving the SC and the locus coeruleus can generate a pre-affective shock while an affective shock can arise from excessive stimulation of the PAG. Clinically significant residues can be accessed through careful, mindful, attention to orienting-tension-affect-seeking sequences when the therapist and the client collaborate on eliciting and describing them.
