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The ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning

Narrative, the creation of imaginative projects and experiences displayed in expressions of movement and voice, is how human cooperative understanding grows. Human understanding places the character and qualities of objects and events of interest within stories that portray intentions, feelings, and...

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Autores principales: Delafield-Butt, Jonathan T., Trevarthen, Colwyn
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557105/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26388789
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01157
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author Delafield-Butt, Jonathan T.
Trevarthen, Colwyn
author_facet Delafield-Butt, Jonathan T.
Trevarthen, Colwyn
author_sort Delafield-Butt, Jonathan T.
collection PubMed
description Narrative, the creation of imaginative projects and experiences displayed in expressions of movement and voice, is how human cooperative understanding grows. Human understanding places the character and qualities of objects and events of interest within stories that portray intentions, feelings, and ambitions, and how one cares about them. Understanding the development of narrative is therefore essential for understanding the development of human intelligence, but its early origins are obscure. We identify the origins of narrative in the innate sensorimotor intelligence of a hypermobile human body and trace the ontogenesis of narrative form from its earliest expression in movement. Intelligent planning, with self-awareness, is evident in the gestures and motor expressions of the mid-gestation fetus. After birth, single intentions become serially organized into projects with increasingly ambitious distal goals and social meaning. The infant imitates others’ actions in shared tasks, learns conventional cultural practices, and adapts his own inventions, then names topics of interest. Through every stage, in simple intentions of fetal movement, in social imitations of the neonate, in early proto-conversations and collaborative play of infants and talk of children and adults, the narrative form of creative agency with it four-part structure of ‘introduction,’ ‘development,’ ‘climax,’ and ‘resolution’ is present. We conclude that shared rituals of culture and practical techniques develop from a fundamental psycho-motor structure with its basic, vital impulses for action and generative process of thought-in-action that express an integrated, imaginative, and sociable Self. This basic structure is evident before birth and invariant in form throughout life. Serial organization of single, non-verbal actions into complex projects of expressive and explorative sense-making become conventional meanings and explanations with propositional narrative power. Understanding the root of narrative in embodied meaning-making in this way is important for practical work in therapy and education, and for advancing philosophy and neuroscience.
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spelling pubmed-45571052015-09-18 The ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning Delafield-Butt, Jonathan T. Trevarthen, Colwyn Front Psychol Psychology Narrative, the creation of imaginative projects and experiences displayed in expressions of movement and voice, is how human cooperative understanding grows. Human understanding places the character and qualities of objects and events of interest within stories that portray intentions, feelings, and ambitions, and how one cares about them. Understanding the development of narrative is therefore essential for understanding the development of human intelligence, but its early origins are obscure. We identify the origins of narrative in the innate sensorimotor intelligence of a hypermobile human body and trace the ontogenesis of narrative form from its earliest expression in movement. Intelligent planning, with self-awareness, is evident in the gestures and motor expressions of the mid-gestation fetus. After birth, single intentions become serially organized into projects with increasingly ambitious distal goals and social meaning. The infant imitates others’ actions in shared tasks, learns conventional cultural practices, and adapts his own inventions, then names topics of interest. Through every stage, in simple intentions of fetal movement, in social imitations of the neonate, in early proto-conversations and collaborative play of infants and talk of children and adults, the narrative form of creative agency with it four-part structure of ‘introduction,’ ‘development,’ ‘climax,’ and ‘resolution’ is present. We conclude that shared rituals of culture and practical techniques develop from a fundamental psycho-motor structure with its basic, vital impulses for action and generative process of thought-in-action that express an integrated, imaginative, and sociable Self. This basic structure is evident before birth and invariant in form throughout life. Serial organization of single, non-verbal actions into complex projects of expressive and explorative sense-making become conventional meanings and explanations with propositional narrative power. Understanding the root of narrative in embodied meaning-making in this way is important for practical work in therapy and education, and for advancing philosophy and neuroscience. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-09-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4557105/ /pubmed/26388789 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01157 Text en Copyright © 2015 Delafield-Butt and Trevarthen. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Delafield-Butt, Jonathan T.
Trevarthen, Colwyn
The ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning
title The ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning
title_full The ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning
title_fullStr The ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning
title_full_unstemmed The ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning
title_short The ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning
title_sort ontogenesis of narrative: from moving to meaning
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557105/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26388789
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01157
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