caregiver infant interactions

Question 1

Interactional synchrony

Answer 1

Where an infant mirrors the actions of another person e.g. facial expressions.

Question 2

Meltzoff + Moore (1977)

Answer 2

Aim:
-To determine if there was a relationship between the expressions of an adult + responses of an infant
-Carried out a controlled observation
Procedure:
-An adult displayed 3 facial expressions; sticking out their tongue, mouth opening and pouting their lips.
-Observations were recorded and infant responses were judged by independent observers, they had no knowledge of the expression displayed by the adult.
Findings:
-Infants as young as 2/3 weeks old imitated specific facial + hand gestures.
In a later study it was found 3 day old infants showed the same interactional synchrony.
Conclusions:
-Ability to mimic gestures at such a young age suggests imitation behaviour is not learnt but an innate ability.

Question 3

EVAL of interactional synchronicity- limitation

Answer 3

A limitation is that it’s difficult to research infants behaviour as their mouths are almost constantly in motion + the expressions the researcher was testing often occur e.g. yawning, sticking out their tongue etc. This makes it difficult to determine specific imitated behaviours from their usual day to day facial gestures. BUT in an attempt to increase the internal validity of their data, they had used independent observers (who had no idea what gesture the adult has portrayed) to judge the gestures of the infants.

Question 4

Reciprocity

Answer 4

Responding to the action of another with a similar action, where the action of one person elicits a response from the other

Question 5

Murray + Trevathern (1985)

Answer 5

Procedure:
2 month old infants interacted with their mother via monitor in real time.
Following this video monitor, was a tape that played a video where the mother wasn’t responding to any of the infants facial or bodily gestures.
Findings:
As a result of getting no response from the mother, the infant quickly gave up and went into distress.
Conclusions:
Suggests that the infant is an active intentional partner in this interaction.

Question 6

AO3 strength

Answer 6

Behaviour seems to be innate + focused on the imitation of humans only.
Abravanel + DeYong (1991)- exposed 5 + 12 week old infants to 2 object models which opened/closed their mouth + stuck out their tongue.
They found that neither age showed imitation of the object, but 5 week olds did show partial tongue protrusions when this behaviour was done by an adult.
This shows that imitation behaviour is a specific response to other humans which may have been a method of survival for the infant as they’re beginning to build bonds with those who are close to them