Afordancje kanoniczne w kontekście

Koncepcja afordancji Jamesa Gibsona miała podważyć tradycyjny dualizm tego, co obiektywne, i tego, co subiektywne. Gibson sam podkreślał ciągłość mi��dzy „afordancjami w ogóle” a afordancjami ludzkich artefaktów. Jednak należy zaznaczyć, że istnieje zasadnicza różnica między „afordancjami w ogóle” a „afordancjami kanonicznymi”, związanymi przede wszystkim z artefaktami. Afordancje kanoniczne są konwencjonalne i normatywne. Tylko w tym wypadku ma sens mówienie o afordancji przedmiotu. Krzesła na przykład służą do siedzenia, co nie przeszkadza użyciu ich do wielu innych celów. Wiele nieporozumień powstało w dyskusji nad afordancjami w wyniku (1) nierozpoznania normatywnego statusu kanonicznych afordancji oraz (2) generalizacji tego szczególnego przypadku

Changing the game:exploring infants' participation in early play routines

Play has proved to have a central role in children’s development, most notably in rule learning (Piaget, 1965; Sutton-Smith, 1979) and negotiation of roles and goals (Garvey, 1972; Bruner et al., 1976). Yet very little research has been done on early play. The present study focuses on early social games, i.e. vocal-kinetic play routines that mothers use to interact with infants from very early on. We explored 3-month-old infants and their mothers performing a routine game first in the usual way, then in two violated conditions: without gestures and without sound. The aim of the study is to investigate infants’ participation and expectations in the game and whether this participation is affected by changes in the multimodal format of the game. Infants’ facial expressions, gaze and body movements were coded to measure levels of engagement and affective state across the three conditions. Results showed a significant decrease in Limbs Movements and expressions of Positive Affect, an increase in Gaze Away and in Stunned Expression when the game structure was violated. These results indicate that the violated game conditions were experienced as less engaging, either because of an unexpected break in the established joint routine, or simply because they were weaker versions of the same game. Overall, our results suggest that structured, multimodal play routines may constitute interactional contexts that only work as integrated units of auditory and motor resources, representing early communicative contexts which prepare the ground for later, more complex multimodal interactions, such as verbal exchanges

Jointly structuring triadic spaces of meaning and action:book sharing from 3 months on

This study explores the emergence of triadic interactions through the example of book sharing. As part of a naturalistic study, 10 infants were visited in their homes from 3-12 months. We report that (1) book sharing as a form of infant-caregiver-object interaction occurred from as early as 3 months. Using qualitative video analysis at a micro-level adapting methodologies from conversation and interaction analysis, we demonstrate that caregivers and infants practiced book sharing in a highly co-ordinated way, with caregivers carving out interaction units and shaping actions into action arcs and infants actively participating and co-ordinating their attention between mother and object from the beginning. We also (2) sketch a developmental trajectory of book sharing over the first year and show that the quality and dynamics of book sharing interactions underwent considerable change as the ecological situation was transformed in parallel with the infants' development of attention and motor skills. Social book sharing interactions reached an early peak at 6 months with the infants becoming more active in the coordination of attention between caregiver and book. From 7-9 months, the infants shifted their interest largely to solitary object exploration, in parallel with newly emerging postural and object manipulation skills, disrupting the social coordination and the cultural frame of book sharing. In the period from 9-12 months, social book interactions resurfaced, as infants began to effectively integrate object actions within the socially shared activity. In conclusion, to fully understand the development and qualities of triadic cultural activities such as book sharing, we need to look especially at the hitherto overlooked early period from 4-6 months, and investigate how shared spaces of meaning and action are structured together in and through interaction, creating the substrate for continuing cooperation and cultural learning