3-120 - Many moving parts: Examining the role of motor ability in cognitive development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The notion of embodied cognition has deep roots in developmental psychology (e.g., Piaget, 1954; Gibson, 1988). The general idea is that infants' actions on their surroundings provide opportunities for learning about their world, and this new knowledge in turn informs future actions on the environment. Thus, the relations between motor behavior and cognition are dynamic and transactional. This perspective is supported by recent findings relating motor milestone acquisition to social, communicative, and neural development (e.g., Adolph & Tamis-LeMonda, in press; Iverson, 2012). However, there is a gap in the literature regarding real-time mechanisms that underlie the facilitative and constraining role of motor development on other developmental domains—what are the real-time effects of infants’ motor behaviors on their social, verbal, and perceptual experiences? How do subtle differences in motor ability affect infants’ interactions with objects and social partners? The present symposium examines multiple processes underlying effects of motor action on cognitive, social, and neural development. The first presentation demonstrates that active versus passive reaching experiences yield differences in object exploration across development. The second examines how infants’ proficiency with tools (e.g. screw-top containers) influences their exploratory and social behavior and caregiver scaffolding of motor action. The third presents findings indicating that caregivers temporally link object labeling to specific types of infant object manipulation. The final presentation demonstrates that when children act on an object during labeling—as opposed to watching another act on it—motor regions of the brain are more strongly activated during later auditory presentation of that label.

Sub Unit

• Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Chair

• Kelsey L West, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• Experience with sticky mittens has long-term effects on object exploration - Presenting Author: Sarah Wiesen, Vanderbilt University; Rachel Watkins, Vanderbilt University; Amy Needham, Vanderbilt University

• How children learn to open containers - Presenting Author: Lana Karasik, College of Staten Island; David Comalli, New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science; Lok Yu Gladys Yu Gladys Chan, New York University; Danielle Kellier, New York University; Catherine S Tamis-Lemonda, New York University; Jeffrey J Lockman, Tulane University; Sneha Radhakrishnan, New York University; Karen E Adolph, New York University

• Exploring links between infant object manipulation and caregiver labeling - Presenting Author: Kelsey L West, University of Pittsburgh; Jana M Iverson, University of Pittsburgh

• Only self-generated actions create sensori-motor networks in the developing brain - Presenting Author: Karin James, Indiana University