Signal functions of infant facial expression and gaze direction during mother-infant face-to-face play.
Recent studies of adult-infant interaction suggest that adults modify their behavior in order to change or maintain an infant's state of arousal. We pursued this question by asking whether mothers modify their actions in response to infant facial expression or gaze direction. Subjects were 7 mother-infant (4--8 month old) pairs in which mothers were instructed to bet their babies to smile. From these filmed interactions the infant's mouth, gaze, and head direction were coded, and the mother's movements were coded as single acts or bouts. Results of an exploratory analysis indicate that, when trying to get a baby to smile using tactile and kinesthetic stimulation, mothers tend to respond to negative changes of affect and attention by changing the content of their actions, taking a long pause, or decreasing the number of acts in a bout.
D001143:Arousal; D003463:Cues; D005149:Facial Expression; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009034:Mother-Child Relations