Early motor development and mother-infant interaction in humans and great apes

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Previous studies suggest that developmental interconnection among postural control, motor activity, and sensory and perceptual activities evolved to generate higher functions of cognition, which include language. Comparative approach to qualitative and quantitative analyses of developmental variety of actions, which are exhibited in social interactions, would be necessary to clarify the phylogenetic and ontogenetic origins of understandings of minds. In this study project, we conducted several observations of behaviors in infants and their mothers in two species, chimpanzees and humans, to describe developmental interconnection among postural, manipulatory, and face-to-face interactions, evaluating motor development with some indications, which include general movements and postural reactions. The findings were as follows; 1)identification of common developmental stages of postural reactions and some displacement of their transition periods, 2)common emergence of general movements and specific differences in their complexity, 3)common emergence of early behaviors, which include sucking, crying, and smiling and specific differences in the developmental interconnection among them. Theoretical frame work was presented for studying the phylogenetic and ontogenetic origins of mother-infant communications in humans based on the comparative data obtained in the study project.