The link between maternal interaction style and infant action understanding.
The present study investigates whether the maternal interaction style is related to 6-month-old infants' action interpretation. We tested 6-month-olds ability to interpret an unfamiliar human action as goal-directed using a modified version of the paradigm used by Woodward, A. L. (1999). Infant's ability to distinguish between purposeful and non-purposeful behaviours. Infant Behavior & Development, 22, 145-160 and Király, I., Jovanovic, B., Prinz, W., Aschersleben, G., & Gergely, G. (2003). The early origins of goal attribution in infancy. Consciousness & Cognition, 12, 732-751. Additionally, all infants and their mothers participated in a free play situation to assess maternal interaction styles as measured by the CARE-Index. According to mothers' distinct interaction styles, infants were divided into three groups. Results suggest that at 6 months of age infants of mothers with a modestly controlling interaction style are better at interpreting a human action as goal-directed than infants of sensitive and relative unresponsive mothers. The ability to understand human action as goal-directed might be a corollary of an adaptive strategy in infancy.
Hofer
Tanja
T
Consultorio Familiare Alto Adige, Via Cassa di Risparmio 13, 39100 Bolzano, Italy. tanja.hofer@rolmail.net
Hohenberger
Annette
A
Hauf
Petra
P
Aschersleben
Gisa
G
D000328:Adult; D002657:Child Development; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008606:Mental Processes / Q000502:physiology*; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity