Onset of Voluntary Communication: Smiling Looks to Mother.

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Infant Communication
• Cognitive Development

Background:

• Infants often smile and look at social partners during play.
• Anticipatory smiling, where smiles precede social interaction, suggests voluntary signaling.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if 8- to 12-month-old infants use anticipatory smiles as voluntary social signals.
• To explore the relationship between anticipatory smiling and cognitive abilities like means-end understanding and intentional communication.

Main Methods:

• Studied 80 infants aged 8, 9, 10, and 12 months.
• Assessed anticipatory smiling during toy play.
• Evaluated means-end understanding, intentional communication (gestures, vocalizations), and memory for mother's location through 5 tasks.

Main Results:

• Anticipatory smiling was strongly correlated with intentional gestural and vocal communication across all age groups.
• Means-end understanding also significantly predicted anticipatory smiling.
• These cognitive and communicative skills appear foundational for voluntary social signaling in infants.

Conclusions:

• Anticipatory smiling in infants is a voluntary social signal, not merely a reactive behavior.
• The development of intentional communication and means-end understanding underpins the emergence of voluntary social signaling.
• Findings shed light on the origins and nature of early human communication.