Cultural Variation in Triadic Infant-Caregiver Object Exploration

Two studies examined the extent to which the type of triadic interaction pervasive in Western populations (i.e., shared visual attention and ostensive pedagogical cues) was representative of infant–caregiver object exploration in a non-Western indigenous community. Caregivers in the United States an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 2016-07, Vol.87 (4), p.1130-1145
Main Authors: Little, Emily E., Carver, Leslie J., Legare, Cristine H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attention
Babies
Caregivers
Caregivers - psychology
Caring
Child development
Cognition & reasoning
Cues
EMPIRICAL ARTICLES
Exploration
Female
Humans
Indigenous peoples
Infant
Infant Behavior - ethnology
Infants
Interpersonal Relations
Learning
Male
Social discrimination learning
Social learning
United States
United States - ethnology
Vanuatu
Vanuatu - ethnology
Visual attention
Visual perception
Visual Perception - physiology
Visual stimuli
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Summary:Two studies examined the extent to which the type of triadic interaction pervasive in Western populations (i.e., shared visual attention and ostensive pedagogical cues) was representative of infant–caregiver object exploration in a non-Western indigenous community. Caregivers in the United States and Vanuatu interacted with infants and a novel object for 3 min. In Study 1 (N = 116, Mage = 29.05), Ni-Van caregivers used more physical triadic engagement and U.S. caregivers used more visual triadic engagement. In Study 2 (N = 80, Mage = 29.91), U.S. caregivers were more likely than Ni-Van caregivers to transmit an action and to use visual cues while interacting with their child. These studies demonstrate that the Western model of early social learning is not universal.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/cdev.12513