Lesson 1 - Caregiver-Infant Interactions in Humans

Question 1

What is reciprocity?

Answer 1

When the caregiver and infant respond to each other with verbal and facial expressions, similar to a conversation.

Question 2

Brazelton (1979)

Answer 2

Stated that reciprocity is an important precursor to later interactions and attachment between the CG and Infant

Question 3

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 3

This is when the CG and Infant carry out an action at the same time in synchrony.

Question 4

Meltzoff and Moore (1977)

Answer 4

• Supports interactional synchrony
• An adult model exhibited three facial expressions or a hand gesture and observed the infants response.
• A dummy was placed in the infants mouth initially to avoid any response.
• The dummy was removed and the infants response was recorded on video and judged by independent observers who did not know the models initial action. This avoids observer bias.
• Infants of 2-3 weeks imitated specific facial gestures, so there is an association between adult and infant behaviours.
• The same investigation was done with infants of only a few days old. The same results were obtained. Int. synchrony is innate.

Question 5

Murray and Trevarthen (1985)

Answer 5

• Supports Meltzoff and Moore (interactional synchrony)
• 2 month olds interacted with a video of their mother in real time.
• This was followed by a video of their mother but she was not responding to the infant.
• There was acute distress as a result. The child is actively trying to evoke a response.

Question 6

Weaknesses of caregiver-infant interactions

Answer 6

• The actions that Meltzoff and Moore were looking for such as the infant sticking their tongue out, yawning, smiling etc, are all very frequent actions that babies do. Is this general activity or deliberate?
• Koepke et al (1985) could not replicate and Marian et al (1986) could not obtain the same results. These may have been procedural issues.
• Isabella et al (1989) showed that there are individual differences. Pairs with greater attachments showed greater interactional synchrony.

Question 7

Strengths of caregiver-infant interactions

Answer 7

• Meltzoff and Moore (1977)
• Brazelton (1979)
• Abravenal and DeYoung (1991) observed infants interactions with an inanimate object that emulated human facial expressions. Infants between 5-12 weeks hardly responded. Infant interactions are a social response with other humans rather than imitative.
• Research such as Meltzoff and Moore’s has led to Meltzoff (2005) and his ‘Like me’ hypothesis that relates interactions to infants developing a theory of mind. This research has therefore been able to expand our knowledge of how infants construct relationships.