title: Embodied intersubjective engagement in mother-infant tactile communication: a cross-cultural study of Japanese and Scottish mother-infant behaviors during infant pick-up.
abstract: This study examines the early development of cultural differences in a simple, embodied, and intersubjective engagement between mothers putting down, picking up, and carrying their infants between Japan and Scotland. Eleven Japanese and ten Scottish mothers with their 6- and then 9-month-old infants participated. Video and motion analyses were employed to measure motor patterns of the mothers' approach to their infants, as well as their infants' collaborative responses during put-down, pick-up, and carry phases. Japanese and Scottish mothers approached their infants with different styles and their infants responded differently to the short duration of separation during the trial. A greeting-like behavior of the arms and hands was prevalent in the Scottish mothers' approach, but not in the Japanese mothers' approach. Japanese mothers typically kneeled before making the final reach to pick-up their children, giving a closer, apparently gentler final approach of the torso than Scottish mothers, who bent at the waist with larger movements of the torso. Measures of the gap closure between the mothers' hands to their infants' heads revealed variably longer duration and distance gap closures with greater velocity by the Scottish mothers than by the Japanese mothers. Further, the sequence of Japanese mothers' body actions on approach, contact, pick-up, and hold was more coordinated at 6 months than at 9 months. Scottish mothers were generally more variable on approach. Measures of infant participation and expressivity indicate more active participation in the negotiation during the separation and pick-up phases by Scottish infants. Thus, this paper demonstrates a culturally different onset of development of joint attention in pick-up. These differences reflect cultures of everyday interaction.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University Tokorozawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Koichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Negayama
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK.
authors.forename: Jonathan T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Delafield-Butt
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University Tokorozawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Momose
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University Tokorozawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Konomi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ishijima
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Home Economics, Kyoritsu Women's University Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Noriko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kawahara
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK.
authors.forename: Erin J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Lux
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK ; School of Life, Sport and Social Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University Edinburgh, UK.
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kaliarntas
keywords: Japan and Scotland; anticipation; cultural learning; development; embodied intersubjectivity; mother–infant relations; motor control; peri-personal space