For infants, learning new motor skills can fundamentally alter their experiences with the world and with others (Campos et al., 2000). Learning a new motor skill may result in a “setting event,” where said motor skill increases the likelihood of producing other actions, resulting in a cascade effect in non-motor domains (Bushnell and Boudreau, 1993; Campos et al., 2000; Clearfield, 2011). Experience with sitting, crawling, walking, and motor-exploratory behavior can have cascading effects in object knowledge (Soska et al., 2010), spatial search (Kermoian and Campos, 1988), language (Walle and Campos, 2014), and academic achievement (Bornstein et al., 2013). Moreover, changes in motor development alter the bidirectional relationship between infants and caregivers, as well as infant attention to social stimuli (Campos et al., 1992; Libertus and Needham, 2011; Karasik et al., 2014). However, research on infant development has yet to decipher the neural mechanisms underlying these documented motor cascades into cognitive and social development. Research on the neural underpinnings of these dynamic interactions across domains would allow for better understanding of infant development, complementing behavioral evidence.
