reciprocity and interactional synchrony

• Interactional synchrony

  > Caregiver and infant respond in time to keep communication going

  > This type of communication ensure emotions and actions mirror eachothers
• Interactional synchrony

  > Meltzoff and Moore conducted a controlled experiment on 40 2 week old infants

  > An adult displayed one of three expressions or gestures such as mouth opening

  > The childs response was filmed and identified by an independent psychologist

  > A link was found between the facial expression / gesture of the adult and the infants response
• Reciprocity

  > A two way mutual process where the infant and caregiver take turns to respond to each others signals

  > eg. infant puts its arms out and caregiver picks the infant up

  > Infants have alert phases and signals when they are ready for interaction
• Reciprocity

  > Brazleton said both mother and infant initiate the interaction and take it in turns to do so - respond to each other
• AO3

  :( lacks ecological validity

  :) high control over extraneous variables

  :( prone to bias - inferences made

  :) practical applications