Infant-caregiver interactions

• Reciprocity: - Responding to an action of another, where an action elicits a response. They are similar, but not identical. - Jaffe – a kind of ‘conversation’ where babies move in a rhythm with the adult. - Brazelton – Refers to this process as a “dance”. Rhythm allows caregiver to anticipate an infant’s behaviour and respond. This is the foundation to attachment.
• Interactional Synchrony


  Mirroring another in terms of facial and body movements, as well as imitating emotions
• Interactional Synchrony


  • Key study - Meltzoff and Moore 1977
  • Controlled observation
  • An adult model displayed 1 of 3 facial expressions or hand movements
  • A dummy was placed in the baby's mouth during this display
  • After removal of the dummy, the baby's response was filmed
• Behavioural Categories


  • Mouth opening
  • Termination of mouth opening
  • Tongue protrusion
  • Termination of tongue protrusion
• Found an association between infant behaviour and adult model
• Same findings occurred in 3 day old infants
• Real or Pseudo Imitation: Piaget- true imitation developed towards the end of the 1st year. Anything before is ‘response training’. They repeat rewarded behaviour (e.g. a smile). Believes it is Pseudo. Murray and Trevarthen support Meltzoff. Played tapes of mothers interacting with children. When infants did not get a response they showed acute distress. Infants actively tried to elicit a response from mother. Supports idea behaviour is innate.