Interactional synchrony

• What is interactional synchrony?

  When an infant mirrors the actions/emotions of another person
• Outline Meltzoff and Moore's research into interactional synchrony.

  • controlled observation
  • adult model displayed different facial expressions and hand gestures
  • to start, child had dummy in their mouth to prevent facial expression
  • clear association between model and infant's behaviour
  • later, the same results were found in 3 day old infants
  • this suggests that interactional synchrony is innate
• Evaluate Meltzoff and Moore's research into interactional synchrony.


  -reliability of testing babies: they move constantly so it is hard to investigate intentional behaviour, as some movements may have occurred by chance

  -observer bias: different observers may interpret behaviour differently to support their own findings

  -recent research failed to replicate the findings of the study