Caregiver-Infant Interactions in Humans

Question 1

What is reciprocity?

Answer 1

Where both the caregiver and baby respond to each others signals. Aka Turn taking.

Question 2

What is interactional synchrony?

Answer 2

When the caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other - they mirror eachother

Question 3

IS - What did Meltzoff and Moore(1997) do and find?

Answer 3

They observed babies as young as 2 weeks. An adult showed one of three facial features and the baby’s response was filmed and labelled. Babies expressions were more likely to mirror those of the adults.

Question 4

IS - What did Isabella et al(1989) do and find?

Answer 4

She observed 30 mum’s and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony. Findings show high levels of synchrony associated with better quality mother - baby attachment

Question 5

What are alert phases?

Answer 5

In which babies signal that they’re ready for an interaction.
Feldman and Eidelman(2007) found that mother’s pick up on babies alertness ⅔ of the time