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Updated: Jun 15, 2025

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

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The Cognitive Architecture of Infant Attachment

Yuyan Luo1, Kristy vanMarle1, Ashley M Groh1

  • 1Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia.

Perspectives on Psychological Science : a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science
|August 26, 2024
PubMed

Insights

Infant attachment quality significantly impacts long-term development. Understanding the cognitive architecture of internal working models (IWMs) is key to explaining how early attachment experiences shape socioemotional and cognitive outcomes.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Attachment Theory

Background:

  • Attachment quality in infancy has lasting effects on socioemotional and cognitive development.
  • Mechanisms linking early attachment to later outcomes are not fully understood.
  • Attachment theory posits internal working models (IWMs) as embodied cognitive-affective representations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the cognitive architecture of infant internal working models (IWMs).
  • To integrate insights from infant cognitive development research into attachment theory.
  • To illuminate the role of early experiences in infant cognition and development.

Main Methods:

  • Review of meta-analytic evidence on attachment.
  • Synthesis of advances in infant cognitive development research.
  • Theoretical integration of attachment and cognitive science.

Main Results:

  • Current understanding of IWM cognitive architecture in infancy is limited.
  • Leveraging infant cognitive development research can refine models of attachment representations.
  • Integration offers new avenues for studying early experiences, individual differences, and cognitive stability.

Conclusions:

  • Advances in infant cognition research can significantly enhance our understanding of attachment representations.
  • Interdisciplinary approaches are crucial for a comprehensive view of early development.
  • Future research should focus on the cognitive underpinnings of IWMs in infancy.

Keywords:
attachmentcognitive-affective representationsinfant cognitioninternal working models

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