Maternal representations of the infant: associations with infant response to the still face

Mothers' representations of their infants may influence early development of emotional self-regulation. This study examined the associations between characteristics of mothers' (N = 100) narratives about their 7-month-old infants, maternal depression, and their infants' affect regulation during the Still Face procedure. Findings showed that (1) mothers' representations were linked with individual differences in their infants' behavior across the Still Face procedure, (2) the association between mothers' representations and their infants' behavior was mediated by parenting behavior, and (3) mothers' representations explained unique variance in their infants' affect regulation beyond the contribution of maternal depression. Although infants' displays of positive affect diminished while mothers held a still face, only infants of mothers in the balanced representation category returned to high levels of positive affect upon resuming interaction. These findings highlight the role of maternal representations in the process by which dyads repair temporary disruptions in interaction, as well as individual differences in infants' and mothers' responses to the Still Face.     

The Role of Maternal Affect Mirroring on Social Expectancies in Three-Month-Old Infants

The role of maternal affect mirroring on the development of prosocial behaviors and social expectancies was assessed in forty-one 2- to 3-month-old infants. Prosocial behavior was characterized as infants' positive behavior and increased attention toward their mothers. Social expectancies were defined as infants' expectancy for affective sharing. Mothers and infants were observed twice, approximately 1 week apart. During Visit 1, mothers and infants were videotaped while interacting over television monitors for 3 min. During Visit 2, infants engaged in a live, 3-min interaction with their mothers over television monitors (live condition) and they also viewed a replay of their mothers' interaction from the preceding week (replay condition). The order of conditions was counterbalanced. Maternal affect mirroring was measured according to the level of attention maintenance, warm sensitivity, and social responsiveness displayed. A natural split was observed with 58% of the mothers ranking high and 42% ranking low on these affect mirroring measures (HAM and LAM, respectively). Infants in the HAM group ranked high on prosocial behaviors and social expectancy--they discriminated between live and replay, conditions with smiles, vocalizations, and gazes. Infants in the LAM group ranked low on these variables--they gazed longer during the live condition than during the replay condition, but only when the live condition was presented first; however, they did not smile or vocalize more. These findings indicate that there is a relation between affect mirroring and social expectancies in infants.     

Developmental foundations of physiological dynamics among mother–infant dyads: The role of newborn neurobehavior

This study tested whether newborn attention and arousal provide a foundation for the dynamics of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in mother–infant dyads. Participants were 106 mothers (M_age = 29.54) and their 7-month-old infants (55 males and 58 White and non-Hispanic). Newborn attention and arousal were measured shortly after birth using the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale. Higher newborn arousal predicted a slower return of infant RSA to baseline. Additionally, greater newborn attention predicted mothers’ slower return to baseline RSA following the still-face paradigm, and this effect only held for mothers whose infants had lower newborn arousal. These findings suggest that newborn neurobehavior, measured within days of birth, may contribute to later mother–infant physiological processes while recovering from stress.     

Vagal Regulation in Breastfeeding Infants and Their Mothers

Consistent with the gustatory–vagal hypothesis, vagal stimulation during breastfeeding may contribute to infants' physiological regulatory development independent of caregiving effects. This study examined whether breastfeeding predicted 6‐month‐old infants' (N = 151) and their mothers' vagal regulation during the face‐to‐face still‐face (FFSF). Although breastfed and nonbreastfed infants showed expected vagal withdrawal during the Still‐Face episode, only breastfed infants showed continued withdrawal during the reunion episode, suggesting greater physiological mobilization to repair the interaction. Breastfeeding mothers showed higher vagal tone than nonbreastfeeding mothers at baseline, suggesting greater capacity for regulation, and throughout the FFSF, suggesting calmer states. Breastfeeding effects were independent of maternal sensitivity. Findings suggest that infants' and mothers' physiological regulation may be shaped by breastfeeding independently of associated social factors.     

Maternal Responsiveness to Infants in Three Societies: The United States, France, and Japan

This study examines and compares prominent characteristics of maternal responsiveness to infant activity during home-based naturalistic interactions of mother-infant dyads in New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. Both culture-general and culture-specific patterns of responsiveness emerged. For example, in all 3 locales infants behaved similarly, mothers also behaved similarly with respect to a hierarchy of response types, and mothers and infants manifest both specificity and mutual appropriateness in their interactions: Mothers responded to infants' exploration of the environment with encouragement to the environment, to infants' vocalizing nondistress with imitation, and to infants' vocalizing distress with nurturance. Differences in maternal responsiveness among cultures occurred to infant looking rather than to infant vocalizing and in mothers' emphasizing dyadic versus extradyadic loci of interaction. Universals of maternal responsiveness, potential sources of cultural variation, and implications of similarities and differences in responsiveness for child development in different cultural contexts are discussed.     

A study of multimodal motherese: the role of temporal synchrony between verbal labels and gestures

This study examined European American and Hispanic American mothers' multimodal communication to their infants (N = 24). The infants were from three age groups representing three levels of lexical-mapping development: prelexical (5 to 8 months), early-lexical (9 to 17 months), and advanced-lexical (21 to 30 months). Mothers taught their infants four target (novel) words by using distinct objects during a semistructured play episode. Recent research suggests that young infants rely on temporal synchrony to learn syllable-object relations, but later, the role of synchrony diminishes. Thus, mothers' target and nontarget naming were coded for synchrony and other communication styles. The results indicated that mothers used target words more often than nontarget words in synchrony with object motion and sometimes touch. Thus, "multimodal motherese" likely highlights target word-referent relations for infants. Further, mothers tailored their communication to infants' level of lexical-mapping development. Mothers of prelexical infants used target words in synchrony with object motion more often than mothers of early- and advanced-lexical infants. Mothers' decreasing use of synchrony across age parallels infants' decreasing reliance on synchrony, suggesting a dynamical and reciprocal environment-organismic relation.     

Infants' Responses to Facial and Vocal Emotional Signals in a Social Referencing Paradigm

The independent effects of facial and vocal emotional signals and of positive and negative signals on infant behavior were investigated in a novel toy social referencing paradigm. 90 12-month-old infants and their mothers were assigned to an expression condition (neutral, happy, or fear) nested within a modality condition (face-only or voice-only). Each infant participated in 3 trials: a baseline trial, an expression trial, and a final positive trial. We found that fearful vocal emotional signals, when presented without facial signals, were sufficient to elicit appropriate behavior regulation. Infants in the fear-voice condition looked at their mothers longer, showed less toy proximity, and tended to show more negative affect than infants in the neutral-voice condition. Happy vocal signals did not elicit differential responding. The infants' sex was a factor in the few effects that were found for infants' responses to facial emotional signals.     

Gene-environment contributions to the development of infant vagal reactivity: the interaction of dopamine and maternal sensitivity

This study investigated dopamine receptor genes (DRD2 and DRD4) and maternal sensitivity as predictors of infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA reactivity, purported indices of vagal tone and vagal regulation, in a challenge task at 3, 6, and 12 months in 173 infant-mother dyads. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) revealed that at 3 and 6 months, RSA withdrawal in response to maternal separation was greater (suggesting expected physiological regulation) in infants without the DRD2 risk allele than those with the risk allele. At 12 months, infants with the risk allele who were also exposed to maternal sensitivity showed levels of RSA withdrawal comparable to infants who were not at genetic risk. Findings demonstrate the importance of developmental analysis of gene-environment interaction.     

Mother- and father-preterm infant relationship in the hospital preterm nursery

The relationships of Israeli mothers and fathers with their 38 preterm infants during hospitalization were traced in a short-term longitudinal study. Parent-infant interactions were observed and self-reports of parental feelings and perceptions were assessed twice: at the beginning and end of the nursery period. Mothers engaged in more caregiving, talking, and holding during initial contacts, but the disparity in maternal and paternal interactions decreased with time. Except for caregiving, in which mothers still surpassed fathers, fathers equaled mothers in all other activities at the time of the infants' discharge from the hospital. Fathers consistently surpassed mothers in playing and stimulating. Mothers perceived their infants to be more difficult than did fathers but reported enjoying them more. With time, parents were less disappointed and concerned over the infants' well-being but perceived them as more difficult. The data also demonstrated an association between infant behavioral states, parental feelings and perceptions, and parental behavior.     

Infants' interactions with mother, sibling, and peer: contrasts and relations between interaction systems

The role of the mother in structuring interactions with the infant during free play was examined at 6 and 9 months. Maternal scaffolding of turn-taking exchanges was then contrasted to the forms of turn-taking apparent in sibling-infant and peer-infant observations. Infants spent more time in turn-taking exchanges with their mothers than with their siblings or peers. These exchanges most often took the form of mothers creating sequences by responding to infants' social and nonsocial acts and by eliciting social and nonsocial responses from the infants. Infants' exchanges with older siblings were briefer and more typically involved the older children eliciting nonsocial responses from the infants but not responding contingently to the infants' interests and actions. Infant peers spent less time in turn-taking exchanges, and their interactions showed less evidence of scaffolding. At the same time, the proportion of strictly social interactions was greatest with peers. Relations were apparent between infants' turn-taking experiences with their mothers and the infants' subsequent interactions with their siblings and with their peers. Relations were also found between infants' interaction experiences with their older siblings and subsequent peer interaction. Those infants with more extensive turn-taking experience with more skilled social partners were subsequently observed to engage in more extensive turn-taking interactions with a peer. These results are discussed in terms of studies on mother-infant attachment and peer competence, maternal scaffolding, and Vygotsky's zone of proximal development.     

Infants' Instrumental Use of Their Mothers to Achieve Their Goals

In order to investigate very young children's active contribution to managing interaction with others, we examined 6–13-month-old infants' instrumental use of their mothers to reach goals. We examined the idea that infants are already involved at 6 months in managing interaction with adults, with rapidly increasing instrumental use of mothers between 6 and 13 months. 64 mother-infant pairs were videotaped during structured episodes in which the investigator instructed the mother to challenge the infant to use her instrumentally to get access to or to work a toy. Already at 6 months of age, infants used their mothers instrumentally in 36% of the episodes. The amount of infants' instrumental use of their mothers increased to 67% of episodes at 9 months and continued increasing to 78% of the episodes by 13 months. These results suggest early and rapid development of infants' management of joint activities from as early as the middle of the first year of life.     

Origins of Attachment: Maternal Interactive Behavior across the First Year

This study built on attachment theory and previous research in examining the interactional origins of the secure, insecure-resistant, and insecureavoidant patterns of attachment. Maternal sensitive responsivity, rejection, and activity were the focus of repeated naturalistic observations when infants were 1, 4, and 9 months of age; quality of attachment was assessed at 1 year. Mothers of secure 1-year-olds were observed to be more sensitively responsive at 1 and 4 months and less rejecting at 1 and 9 months than mothers of insecure infants. Mothers of insecure-avoidant infants were more rejecting at 9 months, whereas mothers of insecure-resistant infants were least sensitively responsive and most rejecting at 1 month; the insecure groups were also differentiated on the basis of patterns of change from 1 to 9 months, with mothers of resistant infants becoming less rejecting and mothers of avoidant infants becoming more rejecting relative to other mothers.     

Maternal Self-Efficacy: Illusory Control and Its Effect on Susceptibility to Learned Helplessness

66 mothers of 5-month-old infants participated in 2 simulated child-care tasks to examine differences in response to the performance demands of child care. Mothers first participated in a task in which they estimated their perception of control over stopping an audiotaped infant cry (illusion of control). 1 week later, they participated in another task to assess their ability to learn effective responses in stopping the cry (susceptibility to learned helplessness). Mothers with a high illusion of control differed from mothers with low or moderate illusory control by showing increased susceptibility to helplessness. Physiologically, mothers with low and moderate illusory control showed attenuated and "attentive" heart-rate responses to the impending cry, respectively. Mothers with high illusory control were "inattentive", with mothers of difficult infants in that group responding "defensively". Our data suggest that high illusion of control may be a maladaptive response to the performance demands of child care.     

Vagal Reactivity and Affective Adjustment in Infants during Interaction Challenges

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and heart period were evaluated in 5-month-old infants (N = 40) during interaction challenges requiring affective adjustment. The paradigm consisted of four 2-min experimental conditions designed to elicit behavioral and autonomic responses to object-mediated (Picture Attention and Toy Attention) and person-mediated (Still Face and Social Interaction) engagement. The data demonstrated that autonomic state systematically changed during engagement and disengagement with the environment. During the object-mediated challenge, increases in RSA were uniquely related to positive engagement. During the person-mediated challenge, there was a more complex integration of autonomic and behavioral responses characterized by concordant increases and decreases in RSA, heart period, positive engagement, negative affect, and motor activity. When participants were partitioned into two groups, based on their RSA response pattern during the person-mediated challenge, only participants who exhibited a pattern of RSA decrease from Toy Attention to Still Face followed by a rapid recovery during Social Interaction demonstrated regulation of behavioral activity, including concordant recovery from stress. These findings provide additional empirical support for the role of vagal regulation of the heart in the modulation of affective adjustment and engagement behavior.     

Dyads at risk: methadone-maintained women and their four-month-old infants

As part of a longitudinal study of offspring born to substance abusers, we videotaped 17 methadone-exposed and 23 comparison 4-month-old infants interacting with their mothers. Using a scale we developed, we rated communicative functioning in dyadic interaction and related mothers' interactive performance to their psychological and psychosocial resources and infants' interactive performance to their motor functioning as assessed on the Bayley Infant Behavior Record. We found, cutting across drug groups, that mothers who performed poorly on interaction were likely to have poor maternal resources and that infants showing poor communicative functioning were likely to show problematic motor functioning--namely, greater tension and poorer coordination relative to activity level; it was the opposite for mothers or infants who communicated well. Methadone was only one among several risk factors affecting interaction.     

Marital Conflict,Allostatic Load,and the Development of Children's Fluid Cognitive Performance

Relations between marital conflict, children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and fluid cognitive performance were examined over 3 years to assess allostatic processes. Participants were 251 children reporting on marital conflict, baseline RSA, and RSA reactivity (RSA‐R) to a lab challenge were recorded, and fluid cognitive performance was measured using the Woodcock–Johnson III. A cross‐lagged model showed that higher levels of marital conflict at age 8 predicted weaker RSA‐R at age 9 for children with lower baseline RSA. A growth model showed that lower baseline RSA in conjunction with weaker RSA‐R predicted the slowest development of fluid cognitive performance. Findings suggest that stress may affect development of physiological systems regulating attention, which are tied to the development of fluid cognitive performance.     

Linking Employment to Attachment: The Mediating Effects of Maternal Separation Anxiety and Interactive Behavior

This study examined the effects of maternal employment and separation anxiety on maternal interactive behavior and infant attachment. 73 mother-infant pairs participated in a laboratory free-play session when infants were 5 and 10 months of age and in the Strange Situation when the infants were 18 months of age. Maternal feelings about being separated from her infant were assessed by questionnaire at 5 months. Employed mothers returned to work before the infants' fifth month, and nonemployed mothers did not work outside the home through their infants' tenth month. Employed mothers who reported high levels of separation anxiety were more likely to exhibit intrusive behaviors at 10 months. While employment was not directly related to attachment, we found infants of high-anxiety employed mothers to develop anxious-avoidant attachments. The results suggest that maternal separation anxiety and interactive style may be important mediators between employment and later infant outcome.     

Head-mounted eye tracking: a new method to describe infant looking

Despite hundreds of studies describing infants' visual exploration of experimental stimuli, researchers know little about where infants look during everyday interactions. The current study describes the first method for studying visual behavior during natural interactions in mobile infants. Six 14-month-old infants wore a head-mounted eye-tracker that recorded gaze during free play with mothers. Results revealed that infants' visual exploration is opportunistic and depends on the availability of information and the constraints of infants' own bodies. Looks to mothers' faces were rare following infant-directed utterances but more likely if mothers were sitting at infants' eye level. Gaze toward the destination of infants' hand movements was common during manual actions and crawling, but looks toward obstacles during leg movements were less frequent.     

Interactions of black inner-city mothers with their newborn infants.

Interactions of 45 black inner-city mothers with their healthy full-term newborn infants were observed during a bottle-feeding on the third day after birth. An exhaustive catalog of some 100 mother and infant behaviors was used to describe objectively the interactions of mothers and infants. In addition to being observed with their mothers, infants were examined with the Rosenblith scale. The infants' birth weights, birth order, and sex and maternal medication were found to affect the infants' behaviors and/or the patterns of mother-infant interactions.