Joint Attention
Social Foundations of Language Acquisition
Early Communications
 Marked by Contingency and Inter-subjectivity
 Contingency: Back-and-forth reciprocity
in a social exchange
 Inter-subjectivity: Mentally sharing an experience
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 +)
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
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)
Joint Attention
Triadic Interaction
 ‘Topic’ of
interaction is
outside the dyad
 Shared interest and
communication
about an object or
event
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
Autism
 Lack ability for joint attention
 Difficulty with Language acquisition
 Show Video (Click here)
Evolution of Communication
 Dyadic found in other
Species
 Triadic uniquely
human?
 Only humans
motivated to share
meaning with others
 Found across cultures
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
Part II: Data Analysis
 Go to Lab 4 Materials on Janea’s website
 www.stfx.ca/people/jlayes
 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