Development of infants' contingency detection: influences of maternal behavior and effects on cognitive abilities

早期的自我知识是随着婴儿对自我行为和外部变化之间的关系或偶然性的认识而产生的。婴儿最容易感知的变化来源是与母亲的互动。母亲倾向于以夸张和感知突出的方式反映婴儿的行为，让婴儿很容易认识到他们行为的外部影响。母亲对婴儿行为的反应是有选择性的，主要是对被认为具有情感内容的行为做出反应。母亲对婴儿情绪行为的反映有助于婴儿调节自己情绪的能力。然而，母亲对婴儿的反应水平各不相同。婴儿对与母亲一起经历的特定水平的偶然性很敏感，并且在新的情况下更喜欢这些水平的偶然性，这使得他们对这些水平的经验很容易持久。因此，母亲的应急婴儿经验的个体差异影响他们的新兴的认知和情感的自我知识。理论家提出，婴儿在母亲互动中的偶然性经验也促进了婴儿后来将他人的行为解释为故意行为的认知能力。从大约9个月大开始，婴儿表现出共同注意力，因为他们与对象一起参与活动，承认伙伴的参与。共同关注表明，人们逐渐认识到他人是有目的的存在，其行为是有目的的。 本研究通过以下两个方面调查母亲偶然性的个体差异对婴儿对自我和他人的理解的影响：（1）婴儿在面对面互动中检测其行为效果和调节其情绪的能力，以及（2）婴儿后来作为有意识的人对他人做出反应的能力。这项研究进一步了解了婴儿的知觉和认知发展，特别是当它们与早期自我知识及其后果有关时。在实践层面上，这项研究可以为处于危险中的儿童提供干预方案，帮助他们通过残疾或家庭环境发展对自我和他人的早期认识。

Early self knowledge arises with infants' awareness of the relation or contingency between self actions and external changes. Infants' most accessible source of perceiving change contingent on their behavior occurs in interactions with their mothers. Mothers tend to reflect infants' behavior in exaggerated and perceptually salient ways, allowing infants to easily recognize the external effect of their behavior. Mothers are selective in their responsiveness to infants' actions, responding primarily to behavior perceived to have emotional content. Maternal mirroring of infants' emotional behavior facilitates infants' ability to regulate their own emotions. Yet mothers vary in the level of contingent responsiveness they provide to infants. Infants are sensitive to the particular levels of contingency experienced with their mothers and prefer those levels of contingency in novel situations, which allows their experience with such levels to be easily perpetuated. Thus, individual differences in the maternal contingency infants experience affect their emerging cognitive and emotional self knowledge. Theorists propose that infants' experience with contingency in maternal interaction also facilitates infants' later cognitive ability to interpret the actions of others as intentional. Beginning around nine months of age, infants display joint attention, in that they engage in activities with objects that acknowledge the participation of a partner. Joint attention indicates an emerging understanding of others as intentional beings whose actions are purposeful. The research program investigates the influence of individual differences in maternal contingency on infants' emerging understanding of self and other by examining (1) infants' ability to detect the effect of their behavior and to regulate their emotions during face-to-face interactions, and (2) infants' later capacities to respond to others as intentional beings. The research furthers the understanding of infants' perceptual and cognitive developments, particularly as they relate to early self knowledge and its consequences. At a practical level, the research can inform intervention programs for children at risk in their development of early knowledge of self and others, either through disability or family circumstances.