Journal Article

Infant and Maternal Sensitivity to Interpersonal Timing

Henning, Anne, Striano, Tricia

2011

Overview

A perturbation paradigm was employed to assess 3- and 6-month-old infants' and their mothers' sensitivity to a 3-s temporal delay implemented in an ongoing televised interaction. At both ages, the temporal delay affected infant but not maternal behavior and only when implementing the temporal delay in maternal (Experiment 1, N = 64) but not infant (Experiment 2, N = 60) behavior. In addition, the experimental manipulation influenced promptness of maternal smiling responses reliably more than promptness of infant smiling responses. The findings suggest that the timing of maternal behavior plays an important role in infants' perception of maternal responsiveness, whereas mothers seem to monitor general aspects of infant behavior such as overall level of engagement.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,Wiley-Blackwell,Oxford University Press
• Subject: Affect / Age groups / Attention / Babies / Behavior / Biological and medical sciences / Child development / Developmental psychology / Dyadic relations / Dyadics / EMPIRICAL ARTICLES / Female / Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology / Humans / Infant / Infant Behavior / Infants / Interpersonal interaction / Male / Manipulation / Maternal behavior / Maternal Behavior - psychology / Monitoring / Mother-Child Relations / Mothers / Newborn. Infant / Nonverbal Communication / Object Attachment / Parent Child Relationship / Parent-child relations / Perception / Perceptions / Perceptual Development / Psychology, Child / Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry / Psychology. Psychophysiology / Reaction Time / Responsiveness / Role / Sensitivity / Smiling / Social interaction / Televised / Television / Time / Time Perception / Timing / Verbal Behavior / Vocalization / Vocalized behavior