ABSTRACT
Piaget described human infants as egocentric and defined action schemes that are directed towards people in the way they are directed towards objects. Piaget’s followers investigated the development of cognitive skills involved in social interactions following two main trends: namely, constructivism and nativism. Fundamental concepts of social cognition are shared intentionality and Theory of Mind (ToM). However, cognitive approaches to early interactions agree that although young infants possess an ability to perceive the other’s actions, true inter-mental coordination is only possible after nine months, when complex representations of the other’s emotions and intentions develop. Thus, cognitive approaches do not adequately explain infant abilities for affect attunement observed from birth while they focus on the static rather than the dynamic features of mother-infant communication.
