Tactless scientists: Ignoring touch in the study of joint attention

Since the 1970s, researchers have focused on visual joint attention as a way to observe and operationalize joint attention (JA). I will argue that this methodological choice has neglected other modalities and as a consequence might be missing important elements in the account of the development of JA and the evolutionary history of JA. I argue that by including other modes of interaction, such as touch, we open the possibility of finding that non-human primates and younger human infants engage in basic forms of JA. Moreover, I argue that touch, as a proximal mode of perception, is the ontogenetic precursor of social communication.