15 The companion space theorem:


self-other connectivity in infant and dyad






Revealing finely tuned intersubjective
co-ordination in early infant-adult interplay,
Trevarthen (1986) distinguishes alteroception as
the motivated perception of others that depends
on the specific cerebral response to the
kinematic, energetic and physiognomic aspects of
the other's body movements. Demonstrating how
innate releasing mechanisms fail to account for
neonatal and deferred imitation, Meltzoff & Moore
(1977, 1989) and Meltzoff (1988) offer evidence
of active equivalence mapping in virtue of a
supramodal body scheme. I shall offer an account
of the inversion mechanism requisite for such
processes in face-to-face exposure, for example,
in imitative learners, 9 month old, who face the
model's pushing a button on a box out of their
reach.


What enables them to invert the model's
perspective as an appropriative basis for
re-enactment on the next day?


A reply is proposed on the basis of a model of
infant intersubjectivity in terms of a companion
space with a "virtual other" (Bråten
1986/1988a, 1992b). The model has been applied to
protoconversation by Bråten (1988b) and by
Trevarthen (1990, 1992), and found by Murray
(1991) to account for results of perturbation
experiments by implying coherent infant reaction,
not random, upon perturbations (cf. Figure 15.1).




Postulate and definition of the virtual other


Definition


The virtual other is an innate non-specific
companion perspective (*A) which complements the
bodily self perspective (B) with the operational
efficiency (virtus) of an actual companion
perspective (A).




Postulate


The developing mind, in virtue of its inherent
companion space with "a virtual other" that
invites inclusion of actual others, recreates and
transforms itself in the same coherent format in
these two alternating modes:




(i) engagement with the actual other in 
felt immediacy (B A);


(ii) self-engagement (with the virtual other) 
(B *A).




Comment. - The first self-other connective circle
(I) applies inter alia to the connectivity which
even a neonate may established with a model who
elicits imitation, and to the connectivity in
unperturbed infant-adult protoconversation,
including live occurrences in Murray's replay
design when mother and two-month-old child
establish felt immediacy (Murray & Trevarthen
1985, 1986) (cf. Figure 15.1 (left)). The second
circle (ii) applies inter alia to circular
re-enactments in infants, including the delayed
self-concentrated effort in neonatal imitation,
and to infant reaction to perturbation of
protoconversation (cf. Figure 15.1 (right)).




The infant's self-other connectivity in Murray's
replay design


In the live and unperturbed sequence in
Murray's replay design, even though separated
by a wall and only audio-visually linked, the
mothers and children establish reciprocal
connectivity. When this occurs, the infant
constitutes with the mother a self-organizing
dyad in which they complete and complement each
other in the mutual constitution and operational
closure (circularity) of the dynamic whole.
Fig.15.1 (I) gives a static inscription of the
first circle in which the child's bodily self, B,
is complemented by the adult, A, as the child's
live companion, and which will be re-established
after the perturbed sequence.




Infant reaction to perturbation


In the perturbed sequence, when the baby is faced
with a replay of the live mother from the
preceding "happy" interplay conforming to (I),
the live adult is no longer available to
complement the baby's bodily self in the
companion space in which they inter-operated.
Hence, that space is again left open for the
baby's virtual other to complement the baby's
bodily self in the companion space. Fig. 15.1
(ii) indicates how the same operational format
applies to the baby's self-comforting as a result
of the baby's transition from (I) happy
engagement with the live mother to (I)
self-engagement upon exposure to the replay
mother. While the contents and affected structure
of the infant's companion space has been changed,
the operationally closed format is the same.























Upon return to unperturbed interplay


When they are re-united after the perturbed
sequence, the infant again includes the mother in
his companion space to complement his bodily
self, re-establishing the former cycle (I). The
reverse transition occurs. The baby again
connects with his mother and includes her in his
companion space in felt immediacy.




Imitative learning


Meltzoff (1988) documents how 9-month-olds,
exposed to model performance on an object out of
their reach, for example, pushing a button that
makes a beeping sound (Fig. 15.2 (right)), were
found capable of deferred imitation with 24 hours
delay. So what, then, enables the infant learner
who faces an adult model pushing a submerged
button on a black box -- to feel even at a
distance the perspective and to appropriate the
model's performance as a basis for re-enacting
the pushing on the next day? The reply proposed
is this: in virtue of the learner's virtual
other, enabling inverted alteroception, the
facing model's enactment affords and gives rise
to a mirror-reversal of the performer's
perspective as appropriating basis for the
proprioceptively felt re-enactment. Thereby, even
face-to-face exposure to manual enactment on some
object of joint attention will leave the infant
with the feeling of having been hand-guided by
the author of the manual movement.

















Imitative learning in the Balinese culture


In order to establish a baseline of the account
to be offered, consider Gregory Bateson's
snapshots of scaffolding or literal hand-guidance
in the Balinese culture (Fig. 15.2 (left and
middle)). The boy Karba (11 and 12 month)
directly experiences his parent to complement his
bodily self, as his mother guides his hands as
they harvest food, and as his father moves
Karba's hands as he sits on his father's lap,
being taught to play a bamboo xylophone. The
initial instruction and "scaffolding" of these
complex acts are facilitated by the adult's
placing himself literally and physically in the
learner's companion space and moving with
learner's bodily self in the same direction. The
parent's hand-guiding affords Karba with the
experience of feeling to co-enact the
performance. On the basis of such repeated
(e)motional experiences with his actual other,
Karba may later try to re-enact the motions with
his virtual other.




The inverted mirroring implied to occur in
face-to-face situations


For exposure to less complex acts on objects,
infant learners, including Karba, are capable of
similar (e)motional experiences and memory, I
suggest, even when facing the teacher and object
from a distance.


Definition of (e)motional memory of engagement in
felt immediacy. - In order to emphasize that such
bodily felt experience (Erlebnis) of participant
motions differs from conceptually ordered
experience (Erfahrung), I say that the other is
experienced in the mode of felt immediacy (as
distinct from perceptions mediated by concepts
and symbolic representations), and shall use the
composite term '(e)motional' (literally
'out-of-motions') to qualify the affective
experience and remembrance of moving with the
other's motions affording the baby the feeling
of participating in those motions.


Comment. - This probably involves and affects
sub-cortical networks in emotional and
motivational circuits interlaced with those that
are evoked in proprioception. In terms of this
(e)motional system, and differing from models of
learning by (egocentric) observation or from
conceptional memory, the model of imitative
learning to be submitted concerns circular
re-enactment from (e)motional memory of having
co-enacted the model's motions in felt
immediacy (cf. LeDoux's (1994) 'emotional
memory').


Definition of circular re-enactment. - Imitative
learning entails that what the learner previously
has felt to be doing with the actual other (the
model), the learner will later attempt doing with
the learners' virtual other. This is here
termed circular re-enactment.


Comment. - It follows from the postulate that the
operational format of what Baldwin and Piaget
terms 'circular reaction' is here qualified
in a radically different way to involve the
infant's virtual other in the same operational
self-other format in which actual others
complement the infant's bodily self.


Corollary about mirror asymmetry.- The relation
between the bodily self perspective (evoked in
proprioception) and the virtual other perspective
(enabling alteroception) is chiral-like (from
Greek for 'handedness'), that is to say, like
the mirror asymmetry of the left and right hand.


Comment.- Let me demonstrate chirality with my
hands: if my right hand is superimposed on my
left, the two hands, even though resembling each
other, show themselves to be unequal in form.
Only if I let one my hands be reflected by a
mirror, and not the other, do they coincide in
form. Thus, in conjunction with the above
corollary the postulated virtual other complement
to the bodily self is implied to enable
perceptual mirror inversion: Body movements of
actual others included in the companion space
afford alteroception in an appropriating sense,
which in face-to-face situations entails
perceptual inversion, i.e. perception of the
other's movements and orientation from the
other's stance.


Definition. - The perceptual inversion and
supra-modal binding of somaesthetic and visual
qualities afforded by actual companions is here
termed inverted alteroception.3


Comment. - This mirror reversion arises in virtue
of the asymmetry of the bodily self and virtual
other perspectives, and may perhaps even account
for the left-right inversion in human neonates
who, after the model takes a pause, imitate
clockwise head rotation in a clockwise and,
hence, inverted direction (reported by Meltzoff &
Moore 1989).




The companion space theorem


Deferred imitation and imitative learning
presuppose successful completion (closure) of
these two self-other connective circles:




(I) First, initial connectivity (in joint
attention) with the actual other, whose bodily
motions, affording alteroception in an
appropriate (inverted) sense, is felt to be
co-enacted with author of the motions.


(ii) Second, inward connectivity in preparation
of re-enactment from (e)motional memory,
sustained in the affected companion space in
which the preceding feelings of co-enactment
(with the actual other) connect to in-form own
attuned re-enactment (with the virtual other).
































Comment. - The first circle (i), conforming to
(i), enables the infant to feel to be engaged in
the performance with the author of the
performance as if they were doing it together and
facing the same direction. The second (i),
irrespective of the delay, entails that what the
infant has felt doing with the actual other -- in
face-to-face exposure or otherwise -- the infant
will try to re-enact with the virtual other.
Sustained in the affected companion space,
perhaps in the young infant as a crude kind of
motivational or "emotional memory" (LeDoux's
term), the alteroceptively felt enactment
connects by interlaced pathways (involving
amygdala ?) to in-form the proprioceptively felt
attuned re-enactment.




A model of deferred imitation


Consider again the face-to-face situation in the
deferred imitation experiment (Fig. 15.3 (left)).
Here the learning infant is facing the adult, and
denied access to the object during the initial
model performance. Yet the learner is somehow
capable to assume the performer's (inverted)
perspective as appropriating basis for the
proprioceptively felt re-enactment (Figure 15.3
(right))..


The asymmetric manner in which the learner's
virtual other perspective complements the
learner's bodily self, enables inverted
alteroception of the teacher's movements as he
complements the learner's bodily self. That
leaves the learner with the (e)motional
experience of having been "hand-guided". His
proprioceptively felt re-enactment on the next
day can thereby be in-formed by the alteroceptive
feelings afforded by the facing other's
performance on the black box out of reach. In
order to attempt doing (with the learner's
virtual other) what the learner has felt doing
with his actual other, the alterceptively felt
motions have to be retained and reactivated in
the learner's companion space to in-form the
proprioceptively felt re-enactment. Thus, what
the infant previously has felt to co-enact with
the actual other, the infant may later try to
adjust to and re-enact in a semblant manner with
the infant's virtual other (Figure 15.3 (right)).
Such attempts at adjusted re-enactment (with the
learner's virtual other) stem from the learner's
(e)motional memory of felt co-enactment (with the
learner's actual other).Thus, the learners'
inverted alteroception of the model's motions
enables them to feel to be doing the pushing of
the button on the box out of their reach even
though the facing model is the author of the
motion. The learner is left with the bodily
experience of having partaken in co-enacting the
movements as if the learner were hand-guided by
the facing instructor like the hand-guidance
afforded by Karba's parent facing the same
direction (Figure 15.2 (left and middle)).


Comment: Implications for autism? - The model and
the learner need not face the same direction,
unless the novel movements are very complex, or
the child has learning problems that requires
hand-guidance in front of a mirror in the
teaching of skills that require reciprocal and
complementary movements. In normal children, the
relation between the bodily self perspective,
evoked in proprioception, and the virtual other
perspective, enabling (inverted) alteroception,
has been defined as complementary, and is assumed
to arise from interlaced neural cell networks
that give rise to asymmetries that are
chiral-like, like the mirror asymmetry of the
left and right hand. Impairment of that relations
is implied to prevent alteroceptive inversion.
For example, the autistic model for the movie
"Rainman" is reported to find it painful to face
himself in the mirror. He closes his eyes while
shaving himself in front of a mirror. Implied to
stem from impairment of the (e)motional system in
autism, difficulties in imitating asymmetric body
movements from face-to-face exposure are
predicted to be most acute in face-to-face
situations that requires alteroceptive reversal
and binding. The first of the two self-other
circles (I), specified above, would be prevented
from being closed and connect with the second
(ii).


In contrast, successful closure of (e)motional
self-other connectivity will nurture cultural
development of higher-order modes of relating to
self and others, like meta-representational
ability, the impairment of which is the focus of
the theory-of-mind hypothesis of autism
(Baron-Cohen et al. 1993).




Postscript: Beginning of the path from simulation
of motions to simulation of minds


The posited companion space with an inborn
bodily-self/virtual-other complementarity differs
from the functionally highly specific "innate
companion schemata" applied in ethology by
Uexkull and Lorenz. Eating food from the mother's
hand might be described in terms of what Lorenz
(1971) calls "a mother companion schema", but not
so when the baby in return offers some of the
food to the mother's mouth in a semblant manner.
Such frequent occurrences invite, as I have
attempted to show, this account: Including the
mother in the infant's companion space, the
infant feels to be taking part in her feeding
movements as a basis also for reciprocal
re-enactment. The caregiver's complementary
perspective in enacting the feeding is felt in
the reciprocal mode of felt immediacy. When the
child in return offers food or milk to the
adult's mouth, this proprioceptively felt
re-enactment has been in-formed by previous
alteroceptively felt enactments. The infant
reciprocates by re-enacting in a semblant manner
from (e)motional memory of having co-enacted the
feeding with the author of the feeding.


Such (e)motional mode comprises the way in which
own and others' bodily position, movements and
sounds are directly experienced, out-of-motions,
as it were, in contrast to experience mediated by
symbolic representations or simulation.


The mode of engaging with others in felt
immediacy clearly differs from the mode of
simulating other minds upon break-down of
dialogue (Bråten 1973ab, 1974, 1992). This
difference is demonstrated by the mothers'
behaviours during the unperturbed and perturbed
sequences in Murray's replay design (Murray &
Trevarthen 1985, 1986). First, the mother engages
with her two-month-old child in live interaction
(Fig. 15.1 a). Then, when unwittingly faced with
a replay of her companion from the previous live
interaction, the mothers continue to talk.
Sensing that something is amiss, most of the
mothers now talk to their replay companion in an
imperative manner (Murray & Trevarthen 1985) in
virtue of their models for simulating others
(Bråten 1974; 1992).


Such higher-order modes of simulating or
constructing others by culturally acquired means
are mediate modes, unlike the inborn bodily
self-feeling entailed in proprioception5 and the
mode of relating to others in felt immediacy.
Unless deprived of interactional nurture, or
brought to collapse or divorce by severely
distortive experiences or by biological
impairments, the primary mode of relating to
others in felt immediacy is expected to be at
play also in the experienced child and in the
adult, and not just a "stage" left behind in
early ontogeny. For example, some of the mothers
in Daniel Stern's (1985) experiments, when asked
to get out of tune with their babies while
watching them play, found it very hard to abort
their affect attunement.




Teasing: infants' simulation of aborted motions
in offer-withdrawal games


The caregiver who unwittingly opens her mouth as
she feeds a spoonful into the baby's mouth,
exemplifies attunement by participating in the
baby's eating.


When the baby reciprocates by offering some of
the food to the caretaker's mouth in a semblant
manner, and opening his own mouth in the process,
then the infant reveals himself to be
participating in the caretaker's receiving
motion. If the infant, however, withdraws his
offer of food with a big smiler or laughter
before the caregiver has grabbed the food, then
something qualitatively different has occurred.
The infant not only re-enacts the caregiver's
feeding movements, but apparently wittingly and
wilfully aborts his reciprocating movements,
finding the offer-withdrawal game funny.


A qualitative leap has occurred for the infant to
be able to accomplish this feat of anticipating
the other's complementary response, and to break
off before that complementary response completes
the adult interaction scheme of feeding and being
fed. Chevalier-Skolnikoff (1982) describes
toddlers' teasing in this format: offers toy
and smiles, withdraws toy and laughs. Reddy
(1991) reports episodes of offer-and-withdrawal
teasing in younger infants. In one case,
following a few pleasant give and take exchanges
of an object, the infant first offers and then
withdraws the object with a broadening smile as
the adult reaches for the object. When the adult
has withdrawn his hand, she repeats the offer
with a slight smile, and when the adult holds out
his hand again, the infant repeats withdrawal
with smile broadening as the adult's hand
approaches (Reddy 1991:146). We may assume that
the infant would not have found such abortion
funny, were she unable to complete, as it were,
in her companion space the complying movements
resulting in the actual other's grasping the
object.


This comes close to anticipatory simulation of
own give-motion and the actual other's
grasp-motions, completed in fancy, while aborted
in actuality. In order to find the wittingly
aborted offer funny, the infant must somehow be
able to anticipatory complete in her companion
space the complementary responding by the adult,
that is, the adult's taking the bait or food,
that is, pre-enact the adult's taking the food in
a virtual manner, and contrast that with the
actually aborted move when the offer is
withdrawn. This is a creative and constructive
act of anticipation by the infant. We may even
say that what the infant does is to execute a
predictory simulation of the adult's motion of
complementing the infant's move of offering,
aborted before that simulated response can be
actualized. We need not attribute here the
anticipatory or predictory capacity to simulate
the adult's mind, that is, to anticipate the
adult's mental expectation. But clearly,
simulational fancy is involved in the child's
imagination of the behavioural completing by the
companion.


This may be precursory of the capacity later in
ontogeny to simulate the co-actor's mental
processes during (break-down) of conversations
between symbol-processing participants. In the
process of offering an utterance, the actor
sometimes arrests himself, having anticipated by
mis-understanding by means of internal simulation
of the co-actor's understanding of the utterance
to be produced (Bråten 1974). Restricting
description to anticipatory simulation of
behavioural response, not of mental
interpretation, we may describe teasing toddlers
in such offer- and withdrawal-games in an akin
manner. If that is tenable, then such operational
characteristics of anticipating the virtual
completion of an aborted movement of the other,
may be said to prepare for a higher-order leap
that comes later in ontogeny: simulation of mind.








1 The various portions of this succinct paper
have been successively presented at the King's
College Research Centre Workshop on Perception of
Subjects and Objects, Cambridge, 17-23 September
1992; at the ICIS Pre-conference on Imitation,
Paris, 1 June 1994; and at the first Theory Forum
symposium in Oslo, August 1994. The abstract
(without figures, comments and footnotes) has
been printed in S. Bråten (ed.) Intersubjective
Communication and Emotion in Ontogeny. Symposium
Pre-proceedings, The Norwegian Academy of Science
and Letters, 25-30 August 1994:15-16, in
preparation for Bråten (ed.) 1998.


2 Transition model: Let the name and value of the
complementary process to the baby's bodily self,
B, be symbolized by one marker, such that A is
the name and value of B's actual other, and *A is
the name and value of B's virtual other. Let the
become-operator ":=" signify that the embodied
values previously assigned to the processes in
the (companion) space symbolized to the left of
the operator are replaced by the embodied values
in the (companion) space symbolized to the right
of the operator. Then, the baby's transition from
a) happy engagement with the live mother to b)
self-engagement upon exposure to the replay
mother entailing the absence of the actual mother
may be expressed in this way:


the baby's reaction to perturbation: BA := B*A


That is, for the baby's bodily self B, deprived
of the actual other A, the baby's actual other A
is replaced by the baby's virtual other *A in the
companion space in which the previous interplay
occurred.


When re-united after the perturbed sequence, the
infant again includes the mother in his companion
space to complement his bodily self,
re-establishing the former cycle (I). The reverse
transition occurs:


the baby's experience of re-union: B*A := BA


That is, the value of the baby's actual other, A,
now fills the space previously, during the
perturbed sequence, assigned to B's virtual
other, *A.





3 1999 addition: this is the defining
characteristics of what I later term
'altercentric perception' (Bråten 1997ab)
consistent with my definition of 'learning by
altercentric participation' in more recent
essays in this volume.


4 Transition model: Let the dot-notation "."
signify appropriation or co-authorship, such that
A.[] marks an object [] belonging to the actual other
A, and BA.p[] signifies how A complements the
infant's bodily self, B, in authoring the
movement p on the object. Using the previously
defined become-operator ":=" (cf. conventions in
the note to Fig.15.1), we may then succinctly
express in the same format the way in which
exposure to the model and his box results in the
infant's experience of co-enacting the pushing
at time (t):


BA.p [](t) := B*A.'p [](t+d)


That is, complying with the invitation to attend
to the model and his object, the learner includes
in his companion space the model, whose motions,
A.p, afford alteroception in an appropriate
(inverted) sense, and, hence, is felt to be
co-enacted in joint authorship at time (t).
Thereby, the enactment of the object performance
as felt by the learner to be co-enacted with the
actual other at time (t), provides at some later
time (e)motional basis for re-enactment (with the
learner's virtual other), even efforts to reduce
the difference between own movement p' and p as
sustained in (e)motional memory.


Omitting the time and object markers, the above
may be reduced to this succinct expression
conforming to the state transition specified in
the note to Fig. 15.1: BA.p := B*A.'p


(The text in diagrams is adjusted in accordance
with Fig.5.1 in Bråten (ed.) 1998:111).



5 The way in which impairment of bodily self
feeling calls for simulation of movements is
illustrated by a patient with large fibre sensory
neuropathy entailing loss of proprioception below
the neck (Cole & Sedgwick 1991; Jonathan Cole
reporting at a Cambridge workshop on perception
Sept. 1992). Struck by this rare neurological
illness at the age of 19, Ian Waterman lost the
sense of light touch and the sense of
proprioception. During the following 16 years, he
was able to adapt to his impairment conditions.
Since he has no feedback from his peripheral
nerves, and hence no feeling of his bodily
position and movements, he has to monitor every
movement by sight to work out where his limbs
are, and to develop strategies to control his
movements, enabling him, for example, to reach
for a glass of water. In so doing (demonstrated
in a video documentation), he apparently uses his
vision inputs and visuo-motor feedback as a basis
for anticipating and monitoring his balance and
motions. He manages this feat of reaching for and
grasping the glass of water through planning and
monitoring the deviations between his mentally
planned and executed body movements mediated by
the visual cues informing him about his actual
whereabouts in the space in which he operates,
without being in-formed by any direct
(proprioceptive) feelings of his bodily action. I
suggest that Waterman, deprived of a sensory
prerequisite for engaging in the primary mode of
felt immediacy, manages to engage in this
reaching-for-a-glass-of-water situation in the
re-presentational mode of simulational mediacy.