caregiver interactions

• what is attachment

  • an emotional bond between two people
  • two-way process that endures overtime
  • it leads to certain behaviours
  • such as clinging and proximity seeking
  • it serves the function of protecting an infant
• reciprocity

  • caregiver-infant interaction is a two-way/mutual process
  • each party responds to the other's signals to sustain interaction (turn-taking)
  • the behaviour of each party elicits a response from the other
  • eg, smiling back when someone smiles at us
• jaffe et al.

  • studied infant-adult gaze behaviour in a free play setting with 6 4-month old infants. 27 separate play periods
  • infant-adult interaction were identical to those found in adult verbal conversations
  • results suggest some universal propriety of human communication which predates the onset of speech
• interactional synchrony

  • two people are set to be synchronised when they carry put the same behaviour simultaneously. this includes imitating emotions as well as behaviours
  • it is temporal
  • co-ordination of micro-level
  • social behaviour
  • feldman (2009)
• meltzoff and moore (1977) - observational research

  • Observed infant behaviour in response to four stimuli.
  • Recorded infant behaviour through real-time videotapes.
  • Independent observers judged the videos, not knowing the infant's response.
  • Noted instances of infant tongue protrusions and head movements.
  • Behavioural categories included mouth opening, termination of mouth opening, tongue protrusion, and termination of tongue protrusion.
  • Each observer scored the tapes twice for intra-observer and inter-observer reliability.
  • All scores were greater than .92.
• meltzoff and moore - interactional synchrony

  • found infants imitate specific facial and hand gestures.
  • The study used an adult model to mimic the infant's movements.
  • A dummy was placed in the infant's mouth to prevent response.
  • The child's expression was recorded and compared to the adult model.
  • Meltzoff and Moore's 1983 study confirmed the same synchrony with infants as young as three days old.
  • This suggests that imitation behaviors are innate, not learned.