Talk the Walk: Does Socio-Cognitive Resource Reallocation Facilitate the Development of Walking?

Abstract

Walking is of interest to psychology, robotics, zoology, neuroscience and medicine. Human’s ability to walk on two feet is considered to be one of the defining characteristics of hominoid evolution. Evolutionary science propses that it emerged in response to limited environmental resources; yet the processes supporting its emergence are not fully understood. Developmental psychology research suggests that walking elicits cognitive advancements. We postulate that the relationship between cognitive development and walking is a bi-directional one; and further suggest that the initiation of novel capacities, such as walking, is related to internal socio-cognitive resource reallocation. We shed light on these notions by exploring infants’ cognitive and socio-communicative outputs prospectively from 6–18 months of age. Structured bi/tri weekly evaluations of symbolic and verbal development were employed in an urban cohort (N = 9) for 12 months, during the transition from crawling to walking. Results show links between preemptive cognitive changes in socio-communicative output, symbolic-cognitive tool-use processes, and the age of emergence of walking. Plots of use rates of lower symbolic play levels before and after emergence of new skills illustrate reductions in use of previously attained key behaviors prior to emergence of higher symbolic play, language and walking. Further, individual differences in age of walking initiation were strongly related to the degree of reductions in complexity of object-use (r = .832, p < .005), along with increases, counter to the general reduction trend, in skills that serve recruitment of external resources [socio-communication bids before speech (r = -.696, p < .01), and speech bids before walking; r = .729, p < .01)]. Integration of these proactive changes using a computational approach yielded an even stronger link, underscoring internal resource reallocation as a facilitator of walking initiation (r = .901, p<0.001). These preliminary data suggest that representational capacities, symbolic object use, language and social developments, form an integrated adaptable composite, which possibly enables proactive internal resource reallocation, designed to support the emergence of new developmental milestones, such as walking.

An integrative model of parent‐infant communication development

“…Then, at 9 to 15 months, reaching becomes symbolic in the form of pointing (Carpenter et al., 1998). This process requires intentions (Tomasello et al., 2007), expectations (Carpendale & Carpendale, 2010), and a primal ability of theory of mind (Liszkowski, 2013), as well as joint attention (Mundy & Newell, 2007), and a responsive caregiver who demonstrates pointing and responds to infants' gestures (Ger et al., 2018) based on a pre‐existing motor repertoire that is now used to signal a desire or an idea (Geva & Orr, 2016). A similar trend may apply to other symbolic behaviors that emerge from simple behaviors (e.g., aversion communicated by turning their heads away is reconverted to signal “no” by turning their heads away, specific babbling sounds are used to signal verbal ideas resembling heard words).…”

“…From birth, infants use behavior, small movements, and crying to communicate with their caregivers and relay their needs (Farroni et al., 2010; Hym et al., 2021; Shinya et al., 2016). Infants' communicative behaviors can be observed by parents in three domains: (1) orienting and shifting attention via head or eye movement (Petersen & Posner, 2012); (2) emotional expressions via facial muscle movement and vocal output (Leppanen & Nelson, 2009); and (3) motor , namely body movements, changes in muscle tone, posture, and emerging abilities to roll, sit, crawl, and walk (Geva & Orr, 2016).…”

“…Infants' ability to use behaviors for communication improves rapidly. Among examples: newborns moving from making small shifts of attention by slight movements of their eyes (Farroni et al., 2010) to an improved ability to follow using head and body movements at 3 to 6 months (Gredeback & Daum, 2015); neonates communicating by crying, then moving to affective expressions by cooing, smiling, and laughing, starting with the social smile at 2 months (Lavelli & Fogel, 2005); and infants being mostly stationary before moving to turning at 4 to 5 months, crawling at 6 months, and standing and walking toward desired targets at about 1 year (Geva & Orr, 2016; Yamamoto et al., 2019). These motor improvements are part of infants' developing communication toolbox, enabling them to relay to their caregivers more effectively their interests (Cohen & Billard, 2018) and emotional states (Prochazkova & Kret, 2017).…”