Since the discovery of mirror neurons, the study of human infant goal-directed actions and object manipulation has burgeoned into new and exciting research directions. A number of infant studies have begun emphasizing the social context of action to understand what infants can infer when looking at others performing goal-directed actions or manipulating objects. Others have begun addressing how looking at actions in a social context, or even simply looking at objects in the immediate environment influence the way infants learn to direct their own actions on objects. Researchers have even begun investigating what aspects of goal-directed actions and object manipulation infants imitate when such actions are being modeled by a social partner, or they have been asking which cues infants use to predict others' actions. A growing understanding of how infants learn to reach, perceive information for reaching, and attend social cues for action has become central to many recent studies. These new lines of investigation and others have benefited from the use of a broad range of new investigative techniques. Eye-tracking, brains imaging techniques and new methodologies have been used to scrutinize how infants look, process, and use information to act themselves on objects and/or the social world, and to infer, predict, and recognize goal-directed actions outcomes from others. This Frontiers Research topic brings together empirical reports, literature reviews, and theory and hypothesis papers that tap into some of these exciting developmental questions about how infants perceive, understand, and perform goal-directed actions broadly defined. The papers included either stress the neural, motor, or perceptual aspects of infants’ behavior, or any combination of those dimensions as related to the development of early cognitive understanding and performance of goal-directed actions.

Studying the Perception-Action System as a Model System for Understanding Development, Volume 55, the latest release in the Advances in Child Development and Behavior series, includes chapters that highlight some of the most recent research in the field of development of the perception-action system, with an overarching theme of addressing how the development of the perception-action system is a useful model for understanding both typical and atypical development. Chapters in this latest release include discussions of Perception and Action, Exploration and Selection, and the Acquisition of Skills in Infancy, The Development of Object Fitting: The Dynamics of Spatial Coordination, Developmental Pathways of Change in Perceptual-Motor Learning, Timing Is Almost Everything: How Children Perceive and Act on Dynamic Affordances, Vision, Whole Body Coordinations, and the Development of Throwing, Action Errors: A Window into the Early Development of Perception-Action System, Are Different Actions Mediated by Distinct Systems of Knowledge in Infancy and Childhood?, Sensory-Motor Development as a Precursor to Cognition, and A Perception-Action Approach to Those with Developmental Coordination Disorder. - Compiles contributions from leaders in research on the perception-action system - Contains theoretical contributions in the field of developmental psychology - Fills major gap in the literature on this topic

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

Through constant exposure to adult input in interaction, children’s language gradually develops into rich linguistic constructions containing multiple cross-modal elements subtly used together for communicative functions. Sensorimotor schemas provide the "grounding" of language in experience and lead to children’s access to the symbolic function. With the emergence of vocal or signed productions, gestures do not disappear but remain functional and diversify in form and function as children become skilled adult multimodal conversationalists. This volume examines the role of gesture over the human lifespan in its complex interaction with speech and sign. Gesture is explored in the different stages before, during, and after language has fully developed and a special focus is placed on the role of gesture in language learning and cognitive development. Specific chapters are devoted to the use of gesture in atypical populations. CONTENTS Contributors Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow 1 Introduction to Gesture in Language Part I: An Emblematic Gesture: Pointing Kensy Cooperrider and Kate Mesh 2 Pointing in Gesture and Sign Aliyah Morgenstern 3 Early Pointing Gestures Part II: Gesture Before Speech Meredith L. Rowe, Ran Wei, and Virginia C. Salo 4 Early Gesture Predicts Later Language Development Olga Capirci, Maria Cristina Caselli, and Virginia Volterra 5 Interaction Among Modalities and Within Development Part III: Gesture With Speech During Language Learning Eve V. Clark and Barbara F. Kelly 6 Constructing a System of Communication With Gestures and Words Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel 7 Embodying Language Complexity: Co-Speech Gestures Between Age 3 and 4 Casey Hall, Elizabeth Wakefield, and Susan Goldin-Meadow 8 Gesture Can Facilitate Children’s Learning and Generalization of Verbs Part IV: Gesture After Speech Is Mastered Jean-Marc Colletta 9 On the Codevelopment of Gesture and Monologic Discourse in Children Susan Wagner Cook 10 Understanding How Gestures Are Produced and Perceived Tilbe Göksun, Demet Özer, and Seda AkbIyık 11 Gesture in the Aging Brain Part V: Gesture With More Than One Language Elena Nicoladis and Lisa Smithson 12 Gesture in Bilingual Language Acquisition Marianne Gullberg 13 Bimodal Convergence: How Languages Interact in Multicompetent Language Users’ Speech and Gestures Gale Stam and Marion Tellier 14 Gesture Helps Second and Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow Afterword: Gesture as Part of Language or Partner to Language Across the Lifespan Index About the Editors

Originally published in 1963, this is a classic work on the psychology of perception. By means of suitable patterns on a partly concealed rotating disc Michotte was able to give the impression of objects in movement; and where certain conditions of speed, position, and time-interval were satisfied, his subjects received the impression of a causal interaction between two objects – for example, the impression that one object has ‘bumped into’ another (the ‘Launching Effect’) or is carrying it along (the ‘Entraining Effect’). In a further group of experiments Michotte studies the conditions in which moving objects look as though they are alive. A large number of experiments are described, and on the basis of them Michotte formulates a theory as to the conditions in which causal impressions occur. He also compares his own views on causality with those of Hume, Maine de Biran, and Piaget.

A trend in socio-cognitive research investigates into the mental capacities that allow humans to relate to each other and to engage in social interactions. This book offers a general overview of this area of research.

In this book, internationally recognised experts from child development, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, primatology and robotics discuss the role of the mirror neuron system for the recognition of hand actions and the evolutionary basis for the brain mechanisms that support language.