1. Social Foundations of Language Acquisition
Joint Attention
Social Foundations of Language Acquisition

2. Early Communications Marked by Contingency and Inter-subjectivity
Contingency: Back-and-forth reciprocity in a social exchange
Inter-subjectivity: Mentally sharing an experience

3. Important Researchers
Trevarthan
Primary Intersubjectivity:
Understanding that others are separate entities from oneself (Newborns +)
Secondary intersubjectivity:
Understanding that others have individual perspectives and intentions, and being able to share in these (9-12 months +)

4. Important Researchers
Bruner
Dyadic Interaction:
Exchange between two individuals attending to one another
Triadic interaction:
A shared exchange between two individuals about a third entity

5. Evidence for Social Foundations Early Communications
Topic Sharing
Dyadic communications (2-4 mos)
primary inter-subjectivity
Shift from People to Objects (5-6 mos)
infant develops the manual skills to explore objects
directs attention to objects more than people: attn to mom at 6 wks is 70%, at 26 wks is 30%
Triadic Communications (9-12 mos)
infant begins to coordinate attention with a partner to objects (secondary intersubjectivity)

6. Joint Attention Triadic Interaction
‘Topic’ of interaction is outside the dyad
Shared interest and communication about an object or event

7. Evidence for Social Foundations of Language
The role of Joint Attention in Language Development
Tomasello
Leading researcher on JA
Found links between JA
and language skills
Early study:
Tomasello & Farrar (83)
Naturalistic Observation
Experimental Paradigm
Nonsense Word Learning
Found that: JA -> Word Comprehension + Production

8. Autism Lack ability for joint attention
Difficulty with Language acquisition
Show Video (Click here)

9. Evolution of Communication
Dyadic found in other Species
Triadic uniquely human?
Only humans motivated to share meaning with others
Found across cultures

10. Today’s Exercise Part I: Data Collection
Watch an infant from India and an infant from Canada (Click links for videos ** Removed**)
Child is shown 8 different pictures by a researcher
Does the child look back and forth between person and picture?
Circle Yes or No for each picture
Add the total of ‘Yes’ answers

11. Part II: Data Analysis Go to Lab 4 Materials on Janea’s website
Right-click the ‘SPSS Data File’, select ‘Save Target/Link As’ and save to Desktop
Open SPSS from WebFX Applications on your Desktop
Follow directions on handout to complete t-test and interpret results
Submit Exercise Sheet before leaving