Mother-infant face-to-face interaction: Influence is bidirectional and unrelated to periodic cycles in either partner's behavior.

Cohn, Jeffrey F.; Tronick, Edward Z.

doi:10.1037/0012-1649.24.3.386

Cited by 345 publications

(346 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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Section: Coding Infancymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, synchrony can be defined as a continuous "dance" between two partners who maintain a patterned relationship throughout play, as measured by time-series analysis. The "coherence" or goodness of fit between the parent's and infant's series of behavior provides an index for the synchronous exchange and serves as a predictor of developmental outcomes (Cohn & Tronick, 1988;Feldman et al, 1999;Lester, Hoffman, & Brazelton, 1985). D. N. Stern (1985Stern ( , 1999 has termed the temporal shape of infant affect at play as vitality contour or affective contour, a construct much like background emotions, and underscored its centrality for early affective communication.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fourth composite addressed periods in which the infant looked at the parent's face (sum of social attend and social play) and was termed social orientation. The monadic phases system has been used extensively in research on parent-infant affective matching in healthy and 603 BACKGROUND EMOTIONS, SYNCHRONY, AND SYMBOLIC EXPRESSION high-risk populations (Cohn & Tronick, 1988;Feldman, 2003;Feldman et al, 1999;Field et al, 1990;Lester et al, 1985;Tronick et al, 2005;Weinberg et al, 1999).Coding of the videotapes was conducted by four graduate students following extensive training. Coding was conducted in 1-s frames for 3 min of the interaction: the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th minutes, the most pronounced period of play at this age that begins after an orientation period and once the infant's gaze is focused on the parent's face.…”

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confidence: 99%

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On the origins of background emotions: From affect synchrony to symbolic expression.

Feldman¹

2007

Emotion

105

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Guided by Damasio's (2003) formulations on background emotions, this study examined the contour of infant affect during interactions with mother and father in relation to the emergence of symbolic expression. One hundred parents and infants were observed in face-to-face interactions and in play sessions at the toddler stage. Parent's and infants' affective states were coded in 1-s frames, and synchrony was assessed. Toddlers' play was microcoded for symbolic level and for reciprocity and intrusiveness. Infant affective contour with mother was rhythmic with 1 episode of positive arousal framed by social gaze. Affective contour with father contained several peaks of positive arousal of shorter duration. Symbolic complexity was comparable and preserved the parent-specific contours, with quicker latencies, higher frequencies, and shorter durations of complex symbolic episodes with father. Sequential relations emerged between parent's and child's symbolic expression, and maternal reciprocity and intrusiveness were sequentially linked to symbolic expansion or constriction, respectively. Parent-infant synchrony and the parent's support of toddler symbolic play predicted symbolic complexity. The need to include time in research on emotions and the dyadic origins of positive emotions are discussed.Keywords: synchrony, arousal, symbolic play, positive emotions, fathersIn his recent book on the neurobiology of emotions, Looking for Spinoza, Antonio Damasio (2003) differentiated three classes of emotions: primary emotions, referring to the basic Darwinian emotions observed across cultural communities and a range of mammalian species; social emotions, those related to the self-inrelationships, such as empathy, shame, pity, or pride; and background emotions. Background emotions, the least researched group of the three, refer to the contour of affect as it is played out in time (e.g., surging, fading, accelerating, exploding, etc.) and mark the organization of arousal and affect into patterned configurations that, although not easily captured by the language of discrete emotions, provide an overall framework for the organization of the self and likely depend on a distinct brain circuitry (Damasio, 1999). Background emotions, therefore, define the ongoing component in emotions, and the central arena for their expression is the social context. During interpersonal communication, individuals perceive and respond to the partner's micro-level behaviors as they cohere into a unified affective message, such as tone of voice, direction of gaze, facial expressions, level of arousal, muscle tone, or body orientation, and the ability to follow second-by-second shifts in such behaviors is essential for the participation in any emotional exchange. Infants are sensitized to the temporal components of emotional communication as soon as they enter the social world, at about 2-3 months of age (D. N. Stern, 1985), through the parent's ongoing synchrony with the infant's micro-level behaviors (Tronick, 1989). Describing the parent-infant affect ...

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Section: Coding Infancymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the origins of background emotions: From affect synchrony to symbolic expression.

Feldman¹

2007

Emotion

105

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“…Self-and interactive regulation are curiously separate in the research literature. Interactive regulation is the main theme and predicts social and cognitive outcomes (Bakeman, Adamson, Brown, & Eldridge, 1989;Cohn, Campbell, Matias, & Hopkins, 1990;Cohn & Tronick, 1988;Jaffe, Beebe, Feldstein, Crown, & Jasnow, 2001;Lewis & Feiring, 1989;Leyendecker, Lamb, Fracasso, Scholmerich, & Larson, 1997;Malatesta, Culver, Rich, & Shepard, 1989;Martin, 1981;Tronick, 1989).…”

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confidence: 99%

Six‐week postpartum maternal depressive symptoms and 4‐month mother–infant self‐ and interactive contingency

Beebe¹,

Jaffe²,

Buck³

et al. 2008

Infant Mental Health Journal

132

168

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Associations of 6-week maternal depressive symptoms [Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)] with 4-month mother-infant self-and interactive contingency patterns during face-to-face play were investigated in 132 dyads. Self-and interactive contingency (auto-and lagged cross-correlation, respectively) were assessed by multilevel time-series analysis. Infant and mother gaze, facial and vocal affect, touch, and spatial orientation behaviors were coded second-by-second from splitscreen videotape, and a multimodal measure of facial-visual "engagement" was constructed, generating nine modality pairings. With higher CES-D, the self-contingency of both partners was lowered in most modalities. With higher CES-D, interactive contingency values were both heightened (in some modalities) and lowered (in others), varying by partner. These results are consistent with an optimal midrange model. With higher CES-D, interactive contingency showed the following patterns: (a) Mothers and their infants had a reciprocal orientational sensitivity; (b) mothers and infants manifested a reciprocal intermodal discordance in attention versus affect coordination, lowering gaze coordination, but heightening affective coordination; (c) infants heightened, but mothers lowered, touch coordination with partner touch-an "infant approach-mother withdraw" touch pattern. Nonlinear analyses indicated that altered self-and interactive contingency were similar at both the low ("denial") as well as the high ("endorsement") poles of depressive symptoms, in half the findings. These complex, multimodal findings define different aspects of communication disturbance, with relevance for therapeutic intervention. RESUMEN: En un grupo de 132 díadas se investigaron las asociaciones entre los síntomas de depresión maternal a las 6 semanas (CES-D) y patrones de 4 meses de contingencia propia e interactiva entre la madre y el infante durante el juego cara a cara. Las contingencias propia e interactiva (propia y demorada correlación mutua, respectivamente) fueron evaluadas por medio de un análisis a varios niveles y en una serie de momentos temporales. La mirada del infante y la madre, el afecto facial y vocal, el acto de tocarse, y las conductas de orientación espacial fueron codificadas sección por sección, a partir de una videograbación con pantalla dividida, y una medida multimodal de contacto facial y visual fue construída, todo lo cual generó 9 pareamientos de modalidades. En los casos de más altos niveles de CES-D, la autocontingencia de cada una de las partes bajó en la mayoría de las modalidades. En los casos de más altos niveles de CES-D, los valores de contingencia interactiva subieron en ambas personas (en algunas modalidades) y bajaron (en otras), según cada individuo, consistente con un modelo intermedioóptimo. En los casos de niveles más altos de CES-D, la contingencia interactiva mostró los siguientes patrones: (1) las madres y sus infantes tenían una sensibilidad de orientación recíproca; (2) las madres y los infantes m...

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“…Studies that have focused on attentiveness to infant behaviour and reactions (Cohn & Tronick, 1988), infant reactions to adult behaviour (Bell & Chapman, 1986) and 'rhythmic' dyadic exchanges (Lester, Hoffman & Brazelton, 1985) have found these all contribute to effective parenting and positive interactions.…”

Section: Does 'Wanting the Best' Create More Stress? The Link Betweenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does ‘Wanting the Best’ create more stress? The link between baby sign classes and maternal anxiety

Howlett

Kirk

Pine

2010

Infant and Child Development

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This study investigated whether gesturing classes (baby sign) affected parental frustration and stress, as advertised by many commercial products. The participants were 178 mother-infant dyads, divided into a gesture group (n=89) and a non-gesture group (n=89), based on whether they had attended baby sign classes or not. Mothers completed a background demographics questionnaire and the Parenting Stress Index. Gesturing mothers had higher total stress scores, with higher scores on the child domain, despite having similar backgrounds to non-gesturing mothers. There was no relationship between the frequency or duration of gesture use and stress scores. It is suggested that gesturing mothers had higher pre-existing stress and were attracted to gesture classes because of the promoted benefits, which include stress reduction, although class attendance did not alleviate their stress. The possibility that attending gesturing classes made mothers view their infant in a more negative way, due to their heightened expectations not being met, is also discussed.

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Mother-infant face-to-face interaction: Influence is bidirectional and unrelated to periodic cycles in either partner's behavior.

Cited by 345 publications

References 24 publications

On the origins of background emotions: From affect synchrony to symbolic expression.

On the origins of background emotions: From affect synchrony to symbolic expression.

Six‐week postpartum maternal depressive symptoms and 4‐month mother–infant self‐ and interactive contingency

Does ‘Wanting the Best’ create more stress? The link between baby sign classes and maternal anxiety

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