The study analyzes the spontaneous social interactions of children aged 2 and 4 years when interacting with peers

What do building a pyramid, going to the moon, pedaling a two-person canoe, or dancing the waltz have in common? All of these actions are the result of a common goal between many partners and lead to a sense of shared obligation, known as “mutual commitment”. This ability to cooperate is universal in humans and certain animal species, such as the great apes.

However, humans seem to have a unique predisposition and strong desire for social interaction that may be one component of the emergence of language, according to the study authors. How do our social interactions differ from other species? And why? To answer this question, an international team analyzed the interactions of 31 children between the ages of 2 and 4 in four preschools in the United States (10 hours per child).

There are only a few quantitative analyzes of the spontaneous social interactions of children aged 2 and 4 years when interacting with peers, even though this age is a critical age for the development of children’s socio-cognitive abilities. And those are not based on extensive video footage that follows individual children over several days or do not allow easy comparisons with great ape social interactions..”

Federico Rossano, Study First Author and Assistant Professor, University of California

They then compared their results with similar interactions in adults and great apes.

Multiplication of social partners

The researchers analyzed environmental factors (number of partners, types of activities, etc.) around the children. They found that the children had more frequent (average 13 different social interactions per hour) and shorter (mean 28 seconds) social interactions with their peers than great apes in comparable studies.

Adrian Bangerter, study co-author and professor at the University of Neuchâtel explains why: “By getting to know multiple partners, children learn quickly about the need to coordinate with each other’s behavior.” The numbers support this rapid learning: 4 year olds already participate in cooperative social interactions more often than 2 year olds and fight with children younger than 2 years old. “Learning how to coordinate with others and how to communicate to engage in joint activities goes hand in hand with learning how to minimize conflict” adds Rossano.

Social interactions are usually characterized by an in and out phase (when a person starts a conversation with eye contact and “hello” and then signals that it ends by repeating “okay, fine” or with “goodbye”). These signals were also present in 90% of social interactions in bonobos and 69% in chimpanzees. It appears that young children use this signal only 66-69% of the time, less often than bonobos and adults.

“On the one hand this may be out of appreciation that they will interact again with the same children throughout the day, like two passengers sitting next to each other on a plane starting and stopping quick conversations throughout the flight without using a greeting each time they continue. On the other hand, perhaps reflects the fact that not every social interaction is based on mutual commitment to one another, i.e. sometimes young children may bulldoze their way and assume other children will simply adapt to them rather than coordinate”, Rossano explains. More empirical research will be needed to confirm this behavior, however, this research is the first step in understanding the role of shared commitment to human social interaction and how it impacts the evolution of language.

Cooperation in Swiss children

A similar study is currently being conducted within the framework of The NCCR Evolving Language, a Swiss research center aimed at uncovering the biological underpinnings of language, its evolutionary past, and the challenges posed by new technologies.

A team including co-authors from the University of Neuchâtel collaborated with an after-school care facility in Neuchâtel and aimed to understand the development of co-acting in children by observing how they use the so-called back tract words (uh-huh, okay) change over time as they play LEGO® cooperative games. Adrian Bangerter explains why those terms are important to analyze: “We use “little” words like okay, uh-huh, yes, or right all the time to synchronize our behavior with our partners. Yet so little is known about how children small gain their use”.

Social interactions facilitate the evolution of language

This paper is published in the context of a special issue focusing on the “Engine Interaction” Hypothesis. This hypothesis postulates that social abilities and motivation in humans were decisive factors in the evolution of human language, the origins of which remain unknown.

In a series of 14 papers edited by Raphaela Heesen of the University of Durham and Marlen Fröhlich of the University of Tübingen, researchers investigate the socio-cognitive capacities that paved the way for the emergence of language by proposing a multidisciplinary and comparative approach. NCCR Evolving Language is part of this special issue with seven of its researchers co-authoring 4 papers.

Source:

NCCR Evolving Language (National Research Competency Center)

Journal reference:

Rossano, F., et al. (2022) How children aged 2 and 4 years coordinate social interactions with peers. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences B. doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0100

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