caregiver infant interactions in humans

• define attachment [2 marks]

  strong, enduring, emotional & reciprocal bond between 2 people, especially an infant & caregiver
• what is reciprocity?

  two-way mutual process where each party responds to the others signals to sustain interaction - like taking turns in a conversation. Behaviour of each party elicits response from the other.
• What is reciprocal behaviour?

  It's seen as an important precursor for the development of future communication. Signals from the infant let the carer anticipate the infant's responses so they can respond appropriately. This sensitivity lays the foundation for attachment to development
• What is interactional synchrony?

  When a baby imitates the actions of another person such as facial expressions & body movements. The actions / behaviours move in synchrony.
• what does research suggest about interactional synchrony?

  It leads to the development of a strong infant-mother attachment as infant & carer develop shared sense of timing & rhythm.
• describe the procedures of the Meltzoff and Moore research into caregiver-infant interaction in humans(5)

  -Meltzoff and Moore did controlled observations on 18 babies.

  -They were exposed to 4 different stimuli: 3 facial gestures such as sticking tongue out, opening mouth etc & 1 manual gesture such as waving fingers.

  -psychologists filmed responses of the babies to gestures

  -an independent observer with no knowledge of what the infant saw noted all instances of tongue protrusion & head movements with many behaviour categories

  -each observer scored the tapes twice
• what did Meltzoff and Moore find from their research into caregiver-infant interaction in humans?

  Babies could imitate both facial expressions & manual gestures interactional synchrony = innate & serves as an important building block for future development
• what is the conclusion of Meltzoff ands Moore's research into caregiver-infant interaction in humans?

  interactional synchrony is innate & serves as an important building blocks for later development
• Give 3 strengths of Meltzoff and Moore's research into infant-caregiver interaction?

  1. controlled observations - often capture fine details as they are generally well-controlled processes.
  2. no demand characteristics as