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emotion expression in infancy - Coggle Diagram

- - - - These infants were primarily from college-educated, middle class families whose parents were highly invested in their childrens' development, as evidenced by their willingness to participate in our study with their infant in response to a form letter.
        
        In order to have a basis for meaningful comparison, a first priority in this programmatic research effort was to describe infant emotional functioning under rela- tively optimal and stable caretaking conditions; the normal population was chosen with this goal in mind.
    - - Though primarily from lower socioeconomic strata, the backgrounds and caretaking experiences of these infants varied greatly and are not easily summarized.
        
        erhaps the most common element was severe physi- cal and/or emotional neglect as reflected in failure to thrive, abandonment, frequent foster home place- ments, and inconsistent caretaker availability.
    - - Ratings were based on specific behavioral criteria involving the presence and intensity of characteristic facial expressions and motoric behaviors for each emotion, and the duration of these behaviors during the rating interval
  - - - Surprisingly there were no significant main effects for age except for the affect of sadness
      - A linear contrast analysis indicated that the difference was in the com- parison between the 12-month-old group and the 15- month-old group. No significant differences were found when the 15- and 18-month olds were contrasted. Examination of the patterning of the reactions at the different ages indicated that the differences were to be observed primarily during the stranger approach and maternal separation episodes, with in- creased sadness rated at the older ages.
      - indicating that the affect ratings were differentially altered by the differ- ent phases of the experimental sequence.
      - During the stranger approach, fearfulness increased as the stranger intruded more and more on the infant, though overt distress was likely to be seen only when the stranger picked up the infant.
      - Distress ratings were highest during the materal separation with other categories of negative affect seen to lesser degrees. Sadness and anger were not seen in great degree in the normal sample, even during the stressful maternal separation.
      - Toy interest was highest during free play periods, dropping off rather abruptly during the stranger approach and separation sequences.
      - Mother interest also fluctuated in relation to the changing situations. While initially seen at moderate levels during the free play interval, it fell off during the latter part of this period as the children became absorbed in the toys. However, it began to increase during the stranger approach, particularly during the latter phases of the approach. When the mother left the room, interest in her, i.e., "search behavior," was sustained beyond her departure.
      - The relatively high levels seen during the stranger approach and imme- diately following the maternal separation reflect the infant's tendency to utilize the mother as a source of comfort.
      - Stranger interest was highest during the stranger approach and maternal separation episodes, when the stranger was most available to the infant. In contrast to the mother's leaving, there was no sustained interest in the stranger following his departure.
    - - The most consistent findings in this study were in the comparison between the normal sample and 12 abused/neglected infants. For every affect except an- ger, there was either a significant main effect for group or a significant group-by-interval interaction.
      - Pleasure. Abused/neglected infants were lower in the expression of pleasure than normal infants
      - Mother Interest. The abused/neglected infants were less involved with their mothers than the normal infants
      - Stranger Interest. The abused/neglected infants showed less overall interest in the stranger as well
      - Toy Interest. While not differing in overall amounts, the patterning of toy interest differed between the 2 groupsToy interest in the normal group showed a greater range, as well as more prompt and sharp fluctuations in response to the various stimulus events. The abused/neglected group showed less toy interest during periods when conditions would be optimal for such play (i.e., free play, stranger play, and stranger separation) in conjunction with a tendency to maintain a more uniform level of play during specific stimulus events (stranger pick-up, maternal separation, stranger separation).
      - Fear and Distress. Different patterning between groups was noted for both fear and distress. The descriptive findings again revealed a lesser range of affective expression in the abused/ neglected groups, and a greater tendency to maintain their levels of affect intensity despite changing condi- tions. A low level of fear was noted in the abused sample during the free play period. Both during the stranger approach and the maternal separation se- quences, the abused/neglected infants showed a lesser peak of intensity in their fear and distress reactions. At the same time, during maternal reunion they showed a less rapid recovery. This was particularly true for fear, which persisted at low levels for several minutes beyond the mother's return. Promptness of affective responding in the normal group was indicated by the fact that peak distress occurred immediately after the mother's departure, whereas in the abused/ neglected group maximum distress was not reached until just prior to the mother's return.
      - adness. Ratings of sadness were higher throughout the session in the abused group
      - Anger. There were no significant group effects involving the affect of anger, with little anger observed in either group.
- - - - Information was gathered in several ways over the course of two home visits and one laboratory visit.
        
        parental expressions
        
        In addition, 30 naive undergraduates rated mothers’ and fathers’ facial expressions for emotion type and intensity
        
        These figures suggest that of the three emotions, fathers had more difficulty portraying sadness upon demand
        
        Mothers and fathers were video- taped separately in their own homes as they portrayed happy, sad, and angry expressions. The goal was to obtain naturalistic yet objective recordings of each parents’ distinctive expressions.
        
        parental involvement
        
        Information on parental involvement was gathered to assess its.
        relation to
        infants’ responses on the experimental task. Two measures were used.
        
        . First, mothers and fathers were interviewed separately using a modified version of the Interaction/Accessibility Time Chart
        
        mothers and fathers (together) completed a Child- Care Activity Questionnaire (CCAQ), designating the percentage of time each parent performed each of 18 caregiver activities (e.g., feeding, bathing, playing with the baby).
    - - The visual plane of the monitors was parallel to the infants’ eyes. Infants observed the facial and vocal expressions of their parents and unfamiliar adults (matched for ethnicity).
      - Pairs of facial expressions for mother, father, an un- familiar woman, or an unfamiliar man were presented to infants on the monitors in a dimly lit room.
      - The soundtrack for one of the two facial expressions was played from a centrally located speaker. The vo- cal expression was in synchrony with the affectively matched facial expression
      - In two blocks, infants alternately viewed their mothers and fathers displaying happy paired with sad or happy paired with angry expressions.
      - In a third block, infants alternately viewed the happy and sad expressions of an unfamiliar man and woman, thus testing the hypothesis that infants would recognize the expressions only when portrayed by familiar indi- viduals.
    - - In the primary analyses, PTLT was compared for concordant and discordant expressions separately for each pair (happy/sad and happy/angry) by each presenter (mother, father, unfamiliar woman, and unfamiliar man)
      - Additional analyses were conducted to examine the effect of parental involvement on infants’ prefer- ential looking. Measures of involvement were corre- lated with infants’ PTLTs to mothers’ and fathers’ concordant expressions.
        
        It was expected that recogni- tion of parental expressions would be positively cor- related with parental involvement.
  - - - Overall, the emotional events attracted infants’ atten- tion; they looked 92% of the total available time at the facial expressions
      - Infants looked proportionately longer at the happys facial expressions than at the sad facial expressions
        
        To examine the primary hypothesis, a comparison was made between the PTLT to a concordant facial/vocal expression and the PTLT to the same facial expression when it was presented with a discordant vocal expression. For the expressions portrayed by mothers, infants looked significantly longer at concordant expressions:
        
        For the expressions portrayed by fathers, no significant looking preferences were found
        
        the unfamiliar adults, infants did not detect the intermodal correspondences when the expressions were portrayed by either the unfamiliar woman, or the unfamiliar man,
        
        In this case, infants did not look significantly longer at either happy or angry facial expressions
        
        For mothers’ expressions, significant differences were observed in looking time to concordant versus discordant expressions for the happya and angry films
        
        ; but infants looked longer at the film that was not sound specified.
        
        For fathers’ expressions, infants did not show preferences for the concordant or discordant films (happy and angry )
    - - Level of involvement was assessed using both the global measure of direct interaction
        
        Time-diary interviews
        
        Data were gathered for 1 typical weekday/workday and 1 typical weekend/ nonworkday for each parent to examine the number of waking minutes during which the parent either directly interacted with or was accessible to the infant
        
        On average, mothers reported spending more time with their infants than did fathers, both on the week- day and on the weekend respectively).
        
        As expected, for mothers, a positive correlation was found be- tween direct interaction and PTLT to mothers’ con- cordant sad expressions
        
        Specifically, infants whose mothers reported spending more time directly interacting with them during the week were more likely to look longer at concordant maternal displays of sadness,
        
        For fathers, no significant correlations were found for either of the global measures.
        
        Child-Care Activity Questionnaires.
        
        In general, parents re- ported that mothers had greater involvement than did fathers in every activity.
        
        Higher levels of paternal involvement also were reported for some activities than others.
        
        Items from the CCAQ were aggregated to yield two conceptually distinct scales: Play and Caregiving.
        
        The resulting Play measure and the Caregiving scale demonstrated strong internal consistency for mothers, and fathers,
        
        for both Caregiving and Play, the majority of the mothers were above 50% on both measures, whereas the majority of the fathers were below 50%
        
        fathers reported high involvement with their infants on a number of CCAQ activities that were entered into the Play and Caregiving measures. For these infants, responses to paternal concordant expressions often paralleled infants’ responses to maternal expressions.
        
        For mothers, none of the relations between maternal concordant happy and sad were significant. Only amount of Caregiving appeared to be related to looking preferences, but the effects missed significance for both happy, and sad
  - - - As expected, infants demonstrated preferential looking at their mothers’ expressions. For happy paired with sad (happys), infants looked longer at the maternal concordant expressions. For happy paired with angry (happya), preferential looking was toward the discor- dant facial expression.
    - - Research should target these familial and cultural factors in future studies of infants’ emotion perception