research into caregiver infant interactions

• What did research in the 1970s demonstrate?

  • demonstrated that infants coordinated their actions with caregivers - like a conversation.
• What do babies move in when interacting with adults from birth?

  Babies move in a rhythm
• What happens from around three months?

  • the baby and caregiver pay close attention to each other’s facial expressions and verbal signals.
  • They use these signals to determine how they respond to each other.  
  • Like a conversation, they take it in turns to initiate interactions and respond to each other’s behaviours.
  • This sensitivity from the mother is important for later attachment between caregiver and infant.
• What is interactional synchrony?

  • This is when a baby mirrors (imitates) the actions of another person, in terms of their facial expressions and body movements. The actions or behaviours move in synchrony - at the same time.
• What is the procedure of Meltzoff and Moore’s study ?

  • An adult model displayed one of three facial expressions/hand movements.
  • Dummy was placed in infants’ (2-3 weeks old) mouths to prevent any response while they observed.
  • Then the dummy was removed and the child’s expression was filmed on video.
• What were the findings of M and M’s study?

  • There was an association between the infant behaviour and that of the adult model. Infants seemed to imitate specific facial and hand gestures.
• Criticism of Meltzoff and Moore's Infant Research Study

  • Reliability issues due to constant motion of infants' mouths.

  • Observers' inability to identify imitated behaviours. - the observer had no idea what behaviour was being imitated.

  • Video observation increases internal validity by preventing bias.
• Criticism of Caregivers-Infant Interaction Research

  • Koepke et al.'s 1983 research fails to replicate Meltzoff and Moore's 1977 findings.

  • This suggests the original research may be unreliable.

  • Infants may not mirror adults' behavior and expressions, contradicting Meltzoff and Moore's original research.
• strength of interactional synchrony as an important process in attachment

  • Abrahamel and DeYong (1991) observed infant behavior with inanimate objects.

  • Infants (5-12 weeks) showed little response to objects, indicating interactional synchrony.

  • Infants' social responses to humans are not just imitation.

  • Emphasizes the importance of interactional synchrony between infant and caregiver.
• • One criticism of research investigating caregiver-infant interaction is the effect of individual differences
  • For example, Isabella et al. (1989) found that more strongly attached pairs of infants and caregivers showed greater interactional synchrony.
  • This shows that children will respond to adults differently, depending upon the nature of their attachment
  • This means that not all children will demonstrate interactional synchrony and that the results of previous research may be unreliable