Dance is a universal human behavior and a crucial component of human musicality. When and how does the motivation and tendency to move to music develop? How does this behavior change as a process of maturation and learning? We characterize infants' earliest dance behavior, leveraging parents' extensive at-home observations of their children. Parents of infants aged 0-24 months (N = 278, 82.7% White, 84.5% in the United States, 46.0% of household incomes ≥ $100,000) were surveyed regarding their child's current and earliest dance behavior (movement by the child, during music, that the parent considered dance), motor development, and their own infant-directed dance. We found that dance begins early: 90% of infants produced recognizable dance by 12.8 months, and the age of onset was not solely a function of motor development. Infants who produced dance did so often, on average almost every day. We also found that dance shows qualitative developmental change over the first 2 years, rather than remaining stable. With motor development, age, and more time dancing, infants used a greater variety of movements in dance, and began to incorporate learned, imitated gestures (80% of infants by 17.9 months). 99.8% of parents reported dancing for or with their infants, raising questions about the role of infant-directed dance. These findings provide evidence that the motivation and tendency to move to music appears extremely early and that both learning and maturation lead to qualitative change in dance behavior during the first 2 years, informing broad questions about the origins of human musicality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

舞蹈的起源：描述婴儿最早舞蹈行为的发展。

舞蹈是一种普遍的人类行为，也是人类音乐性的重要组成部分。转向音乐的动机和倾向是何时以及如何发展的？随着成熟和学习的过程，这种行为如何改变？我们利用父母对孩子的广泛在家观察来描述婴儿最早的舞蹈行为。对 0-24 个月婴儿的父母（N = 278，82.7% 白人，美国 84.5%，家庭收入≥ 100,000 美元的 46.0%）进行了调查，了解他们孩子当前和最早的舞蹈行为（孩子在音乐中的动作、 ，父母认为舞蹈），运动发展，以及他们自己的婴儿指导的舞蹈。我们发现舞蹈开始得很早：90% 的婴儿在 12.8 个月时就开始了可识别的舞蹈，而且开始的年龄不仅仅是运动发育的函数。跳舞的婴儿经常跳舞，平均几乎每天都会跳舞。我们还发现，舞蹈在前两年表现出质的发展变化，而不是保持稳定。随着运动的发展、年龄的增长和跳舞时间的增加，婴儿在舞蹈中使用了更多种类的动作，并开始融入习得的、模仿的手势（80%的婴儿在17.9个月大时）。99.8% 的父母表示曾为婴儿跳舞或与婴儿一起跳舞，这对以婴儿为主导的舞蹈的作用提出了质疑。这些发现提供的证据表明，转向音乐的动机和倾向出现得非常早，并且学习和成熟都会在头两年内导致舞蹈行为发生质的变化，从而揭示了有关人类音乐性起源的广泛问题。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。