Infant semiosis: The psycho-biology of action and shared experience from birth

All human culture, and all forms of knowledge and of narratives we make about “reality” grow from the unique organs and abilities we are born with. Our innate motor intelligence, with sensory and motor organs adapted for self-regulation and for perceptual engagement of intentions and emotions with objects, is also uniquely animated for creative communication with affectionate and cooperative companions, to build a shared life. Developments of body and brain throughout a lifetime, and learned representations of what the world and people offer, enrich this endowment for sharing the “vitality dynamics” and feelings of movement with many senses, leading to mastery of the conventional practices and abstract ideas of our community. Underestimation of infant consciousness and of its imaginative joy in playful exchanges of interests with parents, with family, and in community, leaves later developments of cultural awareness, in object cognition and in symbolic communication, inexplicable.