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Infants' Multimodal Requests and Protests Elicit Responses From Mothers During Everyday Home Activities
Kristy H Lai1, Huanhuan Shi1, Lillian R Masek1
1Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, USA.
Summary
Infants often use gestures and actions alongside single words to make requests and protests. Aligned multimodal communication, where words and actions match, is more effective in getting caregiver responses than words alone.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Child Development
Background:
- Infants use single words to convey complex meanings during early vocabulary growth.
- Interpreting infant vocalizations can be challenging for caregivers.
- Gestures and actions likely aid in understanding infant communication.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the frequency of infant requests and protests during daily activities.
- To determine the extent to which infants use gestures and actions with vocalizations.
- To examine if caregivers respond more to multimodal (speech + gesture/action) than unimodal (speech only) communication.
Main Methods:
- Observation of 31 toddlers (12-24 months) interacting with their mothers at home.
- Recording and analysis of single-word utterances, gestures, and actions.
- Categorization of utterances as requests or protests and assessment of multimodality.
Main Results:
- Nearly half of 2580 observed single-word utterances were requests (35%) or protests (8%).
- Most infant requests and protests (84%) were multimodal, involving actions or gestures.
- Aligned multimodal communication (words and actions matching intent) elicited more caregiver responses than unimodal speech.
Conclusions:
- Early infant communication is embodied and context-dependent, integrating words with gestures and actions.
- Infants use multimodal strategies to express intentions, with aligned communication being more successful.
- Caregiver responsiveness varies based on the type of multimodal communication employed by the infant.
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