乳児-大人間相互作用における行為と情動の共有理解の発達 -相互作用経験が乳児と大人双方に与える影響-

Abstract

People share their knowledge and interests with other in daily life. In social interaction, it is important to interpret another's intention or emotion from their behavior and express one's own intentions and emotions appropriately. Before acquiring language, human infants are sensitive to others' nonverbal information such as facial expressions and gestures, and seem to share others' actions by imitation and communicate their interests to others using pointing behavior. However, whether infants use pointing in order to share the object of their interest with others is still controversial. Therefore, it is possible that adults misinterpret (or over-interpret) the intentions of infants' social behaviors. Adults, the main interaction partners of infants, are sensitive to infants' nonverbal information and exaggerate their speech, actions, and facial expressions when interacting with them. It seems that these cognitive and behavioral tendencies of adults who interact with infants affect the development of infants' social skills. This article reviews the empirical research on how infants share actions and emotions with others, especially focusing on pointing and imitation, and discusses the causes and effects of adults' exaggeration of infants' social cognitive skills. Finally, future directions are suggested