UEL Baby Dev Lab

Joint dynamics during infant learning (JDIL)

Joint dynamics during infant learning (JDIL)

Participants for JDIL project

Infants spend most of their waking time interacting with their caregivers, but the mechanisms through which these dynamic social exchanges shape the development of sub-personal processes such as attention and learning remain mysterious.

Many models of early learning essentially view infants as relatively passive recipients who assimilate information selected for them by their knowledgeable social partners. Yet, there is increasing evidence that internal factors also start driving infants’ attention endogenously relatively early on.

JDIL data visualisation

Most of our understanding of how the brain subserves early attention and learning has come from studies that have viewed infants as passive recipients of information, and by studying individual brains in isolation. Because of this, we don’t know very much at the moment about how the infants’ and parents’ brains are transiently influenced by social information during free-flowing bidirectional exchanges.

This project, led by Louise Goupil, aims to record brain activity from infants and their caregivers simultaneously while they are interacting, and to analyze them with specific tools that allow a fine description of the dynamics of these interactions. Combining these two approaches will provide new insights into the mechanisms involved during early learning in social contexts.

JDIL data analysis

Latest publications

  1. Louise Goupil, Thomas Wolf, Pierre Saint‐Germier, Jean‐Julien Aucouturier, Clément Canonne (2021). Emergent shared intentions support coordination during collective musical improvisations. Cognitive Science. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cogs.12932

  2. Goupil, L., Johansson, P., Hall, L., & Aucouturier, J. J. (2021). Vocal signals only impact speakers’ own emotions when they are self-attributed. Consciousness and Cognition. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810020305390

  3. Goupil, L., Ponsot, E., Richardson D., Reyes, G., & Aucouturier, J. J. (2021). Listeners’ perceptions of the certainty and honesty of a speaker are associated with a common prosodic signature. Nature communications. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20649-4

  4. Goupil, L., Saint-Germier, P., Rouvier, G., Schwarz, D., & Canonne, C. (2020). Musical coordination in a large group without plans nor leaders. Scientific Reports. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77263-z

  5. Goupil, L., Johansson, P., Halls, L., & Aucouturier, J. J. (2019). Influence of Vocal Feedback on Emotions Provides Causal Evidence for the Self-Perception Theory. bioRxiv. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02004456/