f evel ment A LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVE

INTRODUCTION 7 The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that infant communicative action is highly context specific, showing remarkable variability to even subtle alterations of the social· and physical settings in which interaction occurs. The chapter includes reviews of research on affective communication during face-to-face interactions between infants and their social partners, gestural communication in adult-infant interaction, differences in mother versus father interac;tive patterns with infants, and finally, research on how infants interact in group settings in the family and with peers. These areas reflect the research interest and expertise of the authors and are not intended to cover the scope of work in infant social and communicative development. Rather, our purpose is primarily conceptual: To show by example that infant social and communicative action is constituted by the dynamic interplay between individuals and the social contexts and physical settings in which that interaction occurs. The model of social behavior we propose goes beyond simple notions of the mutual influence of the partner on the infant and vice versa. In our view infant-partner interaction is constantly being created and updatedjn a process that defies attempts to prescribe a direction of cause and effect. Thus untangling such associations requires consideration of the interaction history of the infant and his/ her partner. Patterns of social action-such as games with a parent-emerge and dissolve spontaneously and often in the absence of any explicit or implicit intention of either participant. This idea of emergent patterns of action, occurring without plan or intent and constituted only in the act of performance, has only recently been recognized as a fundamental factor in social development How are we to understand the development of infant communication? In broad sweep, infants acquire increasingly subtle forms of expression that eventually approximate the communicative style of the adult culture, How this happens is a matter of considerable theoretical and practical importance. It is also a developmental puzzle that evokes strongly divergent explanations. In reviewing current views deriving from ethological and sociocultural perspectives, we argue that infant communicative action cannot be understood as a simple readout of innate expressive movements nor as being shaped entirely by adult contingencies. Ethologists assume that members of a species-both adults and infants-share a common repertoire that includes the movements and expressions necessary for social interaction. In one theoretical scenario, infants are genetically predis-posed to display actions that adults can readily interpret. Via processes of matura-tion, expressive …