Cognitive aspects of preverbal social interaction between human infants and adults

Our previous studies on learning and on cognitive development in preverbal human infants indicated that motor activity and social interaction played particularly important roles in the cognitive development of infants. Closer analysis has revealed that motor activity and social interaction have some underlying common regulatory mechanisms. These mechanisms can be detected more easily in infants than in older subjects. An attempt to synthesize our observations led us to the concept that there is a fundamental cognitive process in the integration of adaptive behaviour. This concept may help to elucidate the motivational and emotional aspects of social interaction, the role of mothers or other caretakers in their interactions with infants, and the unfavourable effects of early social deprivation of different types on cognitive development. Some of the assumptions on which this concept is based have been corroborated by analyses of adult-infant interaction.