the Role of thE SenSe of Agency for the development of Communication – RESSAC

The Sense of Agency (SoA) refers to the subjective experience of being in control of one’s own actions and their consequences. Influential theories about speech development implicitly assume that infants must already have a SoA over their own vocalizations (SoA-V) in order to understand how communication works, but this assumption has never been tested empirically. Thus, in this project we will investigate: 1) how and when infants acquire a SoA-V during the first few months of life, 2) whether this predicts the development of intentional vocal communication, and 3) whether daily caregivers’ responsiveness predicts the emergence of infants’ SoA-V and intentional communication. To do so, we will combine two lines of research. On the one hand, we will build on research involving adult participants that has shown that the functioning of sensorimotor forward models – which can be inferred from neural prediction errors and acoustic compensation – supports the SoA-V. On the other hand, we will build on developmental research that has documented how caregivers' responsiveness impacts infants’ communicative development, and on recent developments in the field that will allow us to measure caregivers’ responsiveness at home. In a longitudinal design combining electroencephalographic recordings (in the lab) and daylong recordings (at home) we will examine: 1) whether infants display neural prediction errors and auditory compensation to altered vocal feedback during proto-conversations with their caregivers when they are 2.5 and 4.5 months; 2) whether these neural and behavioral signatures of SoA-V predict infants' communicative development; 3) by collecting home recordings when infants are 2.5 and 4.5-months, we will investigate whether caregivers’ responsiveness relates to infants emerging SoA-V, and to their communicative development. By combining two previously unconnected lines of research, this project will shed new light on the emergence of the SoA during ontogeny, and how it supports the development of communication.