Representation and Internalization in Infancy: Three Principles of Salience

Three principles of salience describe interaction structures in the first year of life. The principles of ongoing regulations, disruption and repair, and heightened affective moments are variations on the ways in which expectancies of social interactions are organized. The term ongoing regulations captures the characteristic pattern of repeated interactions. Disruption and repair describes a specific sequence broken out of the broad pattern. In heightened affective moments, one dramatic moment stands out in time. Over the course of the first year and beyond, these three principles constitute criteria by which interactions will be categorized and represented at a presymbolic level. The three principles of salience can simultaneously illuminate the origins of representation and internalization. Interactive regulation is the central concept in both. We propose that internalization in the first year is not a process distinct from the organization of representations. Both partners jointly construct dyadic modes of regulation, which include interactive and self regulations. The expectation and presymbolic representation of the dyadic modes of regulation, as organized by the three principles of salience, constitute the inner organization.