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The Artistic Infant Directed Performance: A Mycroanalysis of the Adult’s Movements and Sounds

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Abstract

Intersubjectivity experiences established between adults and infants are partially determined by the particular ways in which adults are active in front of babies. An important amount of research focuses on the “musicality” of infant-directed speech (defined melodic contours, tonal and rhythm variations, etc.) and its role in linguistic enculturation. However, researchers have recently suggested that adults also bring a multimodal performance to infants. According to this, some scholars seem to find indicators of the genesis of the performing arts (mainly music and dance) in such a multimodal stimulation. We analyze the adult performance using analytical categories and methodologies of analysis broadly validated in the fields of music performance and movement analysis in contemporary dance. We present microanalyses of an adult-7 month old infant interaction scene that evidenced structural aspects of infant directed multimodal performance compatible with music and dance structures, and suggest functions of adult performance similar to performing arts functions or related to them.

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Notes

  1. The phonation act does not result in a simple tone, but in a set of tones or spectrum. The lowest tone of this set is called fundamental, which generally corresponds with what we hear as sound’s pitch, while others are overtones. Ideally the intensity of each overtone decreases as these turn higher. So the first overtone will be stronger than the second and this in turn stronger than the third. This idealization gets more fulfilled in spoken voice than in sung voice given that in the latter there are higher frequencies that often reach higher sound levels than the inferior ones. It is then expected that the spoken voice shows more intensity in the lowest overtone, while the singing voice depends on the tessitura, the emission type, etc.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Silvia Español

  2. Laboratory for the Study of Musical Experience, Faculty of Fine Arts, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Favio Shifres

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  1. Silvia Español
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  2. Favio Shifres
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Correspondence to Silvia Español.

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Español, S., Shifres, F. The Artistic Infant Directed Performance: A Mycroanalysis of the Adult’s Movements and Sounds. Integr. psych. behav. 49, 371–397 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-015-9308-4

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