Affectivity as a form of communication during interactions between parent, child, and <em>TouchCounts</em>

Overview

This qualitative study investigates embodied communication dynamics within family mathematics interactions mediated by TouchCounts, a multitouch technology application. The research conceptualizes affectivity—understood as the circulation of attunement, resonance, and intensity of movement and feeling—as a constitutive element of communication within the parent-child-TouchCounts assemblage. The study departs from conventional information-transmission frameworks to adopt an embodied and relational analytical perspective that privileges the affective and material dimensions of mathematical interaction.

Methods and approach

The study employs close qualitative analysis of two video-recorded excerpts of parent-child interactions with the TouchCounts application. The methodology traces mathematical events through moment-by-moment examination of bodily action and material engagement, attending to how affective flow structures participant responses to one another and to the digital interface. This approach integrates embodied communication theory with relational frameworks that treat human and non-human components as interdependent elements within a composite system.

Key Findings

The analysis demonstrates that affectivity operates as a constitutive dimension of mathematical communication. Mathematical concepts—including addition conceptualized as bigness and number composition enacted through V-gestures—are shown to be constituted, oriented, sustained, and transformed through affective flows and embodied engagement. The findings indicate that how mathematical meaning emerges in technology-mediated family contexts is fundamentally shaped by the circulation of attunement and intensity across participants and the technological interface, rather than through abstract symbolic manipulation alone.

Implications

The study contributes to theoretical understanding of mathematical communication by foregrounding affectivity and embodiment as primary analytical categories. The findings suggest that accounts of mathematical meaning-making in technology-mediated contexts must attend to the affective and material dimensions of interaction, not merely to cognitive or representational aspects. This perspective has implications for how family mathematics interactions are conceptualized and potentially supported in educational settings.