Joint action and joint attention: drawing parallels between the literatures

Two of the most important milestones in children’s development are joint action (acting with others) and joint attention (attending with others). These are popular fields in both psychology and philosophy, but have formed surprisingly independent literatures despite the close similarities they share in terms of theoretical and methodological issues. This article systematically compares these fields and draws attention to specific and more general ways in which each could benefit from the other if communication between them were increased. We highlight a clear opportunity within these fields, but this could be a useful approach in cognitive science more generally.