Real-Time Assembly of Coordination Patterns in Human Infants
1Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Current Biology : CB
|September 25, 2020
Summary
Infants learn to adapt movement strategies through experience. More experienced infants flexibly adjust their cruising coordination, supporting the idea that practice helps infants learn to learn new motor skills.
Area of Science:
- Developmental psychology
- Motor learning
- Infant behavior
Background:
- Flexibility and generativity are key to functional behavior, developing from infancy.
- Understanding how infants tailor real-time solutions to environmental variations is crucial.
- Two views exist: nativist (innate solutions refined by experience) and emergentist (indiscriminate strategies refined by experience).
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how infants learn to adapt motor coordination patterns.
- To differentiate between nativist and emergentist accounts of motor skill development.
- To examine the role of experience in tailoring movement solutions.
Main Methods:
- Observed 11-month-old infants with varying cruising and crawling experience.
- Analyzed infant coordination patterns during cruising between handrails of variable distances.
- Utilized computer-vision, machine-learning, and time-series analyses to identify coordination patterns.
Main Results:
- Inexperienced infants showed inconsistent coordination patterns, irrespective of body size or handrail distance.
- Experienced infants demonstrated tailored coordination patterns based on body-environment relations.
- Experience-specific benefits were observed for cruising, not crawling, despite both involving anti-phase limb coordination.
Conclusions:
- Findings support the emergentist view of motor development.
- Infant experience with a specific skill promotes "learning to learn."
- Infants learn to dynamically assemble appropriate motor solutions for novel challenges.
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