Caregiver-infant Interactions

Question 1

Reciprocity

Answer 1

a form of interaction between infant and caregiver involving mutual responsiveness, with both infant and mother responding to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other

Question 2

Interactional synchrony

Answer 2

• Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated or synchronised way. For example, their facial expression

Question 3

What did Meltzoff and Moore do?

Answer 3

investigated interactional synchrony in infants using a controlled observation. An adult displayed one of three facial expressions, or hand gesture and the child’s response was filmed.

Question 4

What did Meltzoff and Moore find?

Answer 4

An association was found between the adults display of hand gestures or facial expressions and the actions of the baby

Question 5

what did Meltzoff and Moore conclude?

Answer 5

suggest that interactional synchrony is innate and reduces the strength of any claim that imitative behaviour is learned

Question 6

Hard to know what’s happening when it comes to observing children

Answer 6

• observation show hand gestures and changes in expressions
• this is difficult to tell what is going on and what we are observing
• this calls into question the validity of the findings as it is subject to the researchers interpretation and thus may be biased.

Question 7

control observation capture fine details

Answer 7

• well controlled procedures observing mother-infant interactions with multiple angles
• this ensures the behaviour can be recorded and analysed later
• babies don’t know often care or know their being watched and thus the observation will have no impact on their behaviour which often is a common issue in observations

means the research has good validity