Caregiver-infant interaction and
the still-face
Messinger
1
Two to six months
Waking time increases
 Crying decreases
 Motor movement become more purposeful
 Infants maintain eye contact
 They increasingly initiate as well as respond
to caregiver
 A good time to play

3
Social play

Enjoyable interaction for its own sake
–
"mutual maintenance of attention and arousal
within” a range that facilitates positive
expressions like smiles and coos
•
(Stern, 1974a, p. 404).
Often occurs during face-to-face
interactions in the middle-class West
 Other groups?

4
Smile development in Germany
and Africa
‘At 6 weeks, mothers and infants from both
communities smiled at each other for
similar (albeit very short) amounts of time
and imitated each other’s smiling rarely.
 At 12 weeks, mothers and their infants from
Münster smiled at and imitated each other
more often than did Nso mothers and their
infants.

•
Wörmann, V., Holodynski, M., Kärtner, J., & Keller, H. (2012). A cross-cultural
comparison of the development of the social smile: A longitudinal study of maternal and
infant imitation in 6- and 12-week-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 35(3),
335-347. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2012.03.002
5
Caregiver’s role

Exaggerated vocalizations, facial expressions, and
movements
–
–
–
–
Slowing down and simplification
Rhythm and repetition
Matching and attunement
Variability in this repertoire

Under- and over-stimulation
–
clinical implications
6
Open system

Caregiver Energy influx
–
“a continually changing array of sounds,
motions, facial expressions, tactile and
kinesthetic events” modulating “the level
nature, timing, and patterning of stimulation”
Stern (1974, p. 407)
7
Infant’s role
Functional control of gazing, smiling, and
vocalizing are integrated into play
 Infant seeks stimulation that is optimally
arousing

–
Different from earlier homeostatic perspectives
9
Are infants really responding

Maybe they are cyclic….
10
A guide to infant action:
If you acted last … act again!
Infant
Smiles
Neural Networks
Messinger, Ruvolo, et al., 2010
Stops
Mother
Smiles
Stops
psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger
Infants exhibit stable patterns of
attention during interaction
psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger
Periods of sustained interest

In both gazing at (and away) from mother’s face,
infants
–
–
tend to follow a longer gaze with a longer gaze
and a shorter gaze with a shorter gaze



for up to two consecutive gazes
Infants have periods of sustained visual interest
that span various gazes
So gazes away are not micro-rejections
–
They’re interest in something else
13
Whether or not the mother is active
14
Mom & dad patterns with baby

Mother
–
–
–

Infant positive displays build more gradually;
Rhythmic; positive arousal framed by social gaze
More positive affect
Father
–
–
Positive displays appear more suddenly
several peaks of positive arousal of shorter duration.
•
{Feldman, 2003 #1129}.
More physical play (Cohn et al)
 Later: ‘Symbolic complexity preserved parent-specific
contours, with quicker latencies, higher frequencies, and
shorter durations of complex symbolic episodes with
father.’
–
16
Necessity and sufficiency

Mother smiles are not sufficient to elicit an infant
smile before six months, but they are necessary
–

Parents, then, may feel responsible for whether or not
their infants smile. {Symons, 1994 #503}
Infant smiles are sufficient to elicit a mother
smile, but are not necessary.
–
Mothers typically smile in response to infant smiles and
do so within a two second time interval
•
–
{Malatesta, 1982 #143; Van Egeren, 2001 #857}.
However, mothers often smile in the absence of an
infant smile.
17
In general
Mothers affectively intensify interaction
 But infants regulate exposure to affective
intensity.

–
Maternal positive expressions increase odds
both of infant reciprocation and infant turning
away
 Developmentally,
infants become more likely to
reciprocate and to elicit
18
Development
20
Early interaction
Mother tends to gaze at infant almost
continuously
 Through two months, infants are transfixed
by caregiver’s face
 Infant and caregiver interactions resemble
those of romantic lovers in the beginning of
the relationship

21
Percent of session
Infant gaze at mother declines –
except when mother is smiling
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
% Gaze at
Mother
% Gaze at
Mother While
Mother Smiling
6 weeks
13 weeks 26 weeks
Inexact depiction of Kaye & Fogel, 1978
23
Developmental results

With age
–
–

The duration of infants' gazes at mother's face
became briefer
The duration of gazes away from mothers face
became more lengthy
Reflects increasing familiarity with mother's
face and increasing interest in other features
of the environment
24
Infant greetings
Attends to mother and then opens mouth,
smiles, vocalizes, or laughs
 Rare at 6 weeks and dependent on mother
attending
 More common at 3 months
 By 6 – and especially 9 - months, no longer
dependent on mother attention

–
Infant initiates
25
Social-emotional development
Smile turn-taking increased with age,
mean r = 0.43, p < 0.001
Turn-taking
No Turn-taking
Mother Smile
Infant Smile
Mother Smile
Mother Smile
Infant Smile
Messinger et al., 2010
psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger
Long-term effects?

“Normal” affective communication system:
–
–
–

Frequently moves from positive coordinated states to
negative miscoordinated states
BUT miscoordinated states are “repaired” -- returned
to coordinated states
Infant feels effective and caretaker is reliable
“Abnormal” affective communication system:
–
–
–
–
Mostly negative, miscoordinated states with no repair
to positive, coordinated states
More likely in depressed mothers
Infant feels ineffective
Pathway to psychopathology?
Bell
Face-to-face interaction can be
bi-directional

Infants tend to influence parents who
sometimes influence infants
 Mothers
are not simply inserting their actions in the
pauses between infant actions
–
Influencing the probability the partner will
engage in a particular action
 Not
–
determining that the action will occur.
Probabilistic or stochastic
33
Mutual regulation (=bi-directional)
“both partners reciprocally modify their
actions based on feedback they receive from
their partners” (Tronick et al., 1978, p. 2).
 This is how infants learn “the meaning of
their own expressive behavior” (Tronick et
al., 1978, p. 1).

–
video
34
Dynamic systems:
Predicting interactions in time

Motivated by social • Applying machine
learning to interaction
robotics
psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger
Messinger et al., 2010
Inverse Optimal Control
Mathematical framework linking observed
behavior during early social interaction with
infant and mother reward structure
Sensory Feedback and Reward
Action
World
(mother smiling)
What do babies want?
Not what moms want….
Effects of infant smiles
when mother is not smiling
Should infant smile?
For how long?
What about interactive process?
Object of Measurement: 11.10
Parent


Who leads whom?
No group models
directly address this
question
Can we capture these
processes with
ratings?
120.00
Emotional Valence Ratings

Infant
140.00
100.00
80.00
60.00
40.00
20.00
0.00
.00
10.00
20.00
30.00
40.00
50.00
http://measurement.psy.miami.edu/cms.phtml
60.00
70.00
80.00
90.00 100.00 110.00 120.00 130.00 140.00 150.00 160.00 170.00 180.00
Seconds
Affective Valence: Non-expert raters
•
•
•
•
•
•
16-20 non-expert
(undergrads)
Separate ratings of infants
& parents
Affective valence
above tic mark
positive emotion (joy,
happiness, pleasure) …
below mark
negative emotion (distress,
sadness, anger).”
psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger/
Scaling
Bar
Neutral
Tic
Infant leads parent
Chow,
Haltigan, &
Messinger,
2010,
Emotion
Face-to-Face Still-Face
Reunion
Does emotional influence
vary in time?
http://measurement.psy.miami.edu/cms.phtml
Interactive Influence
Emotional influence itself varies with
time during interactive episodes
Face-to-Face
Still-Face
  it 
Infantit  1 0 Parentit  i ,t 1 
 Bit 
  it  1  2
    1 0
 i ,t 1  
 Bit   0 0
http://measurement.psy.miami.edu/cms.phtml
Reunion
0  i ,t 1    ,it 

 

0  i ,t  2    0 
1  Bi ,t 1   B ,it 
Variability in time

Can also be seen in computer vision
measurements of two dyads’ face-to-face
interactions
–
Messinger, et al., 2009
51
dmessinger@miami.edu
53
5
4
3
2
1
0
Dyad A
.50
.35
0
10
20
30
40
50
.36
60
70
80
.21
90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180
5
4
3
2
1
0
Dyad B
Facial Actions & Tickling
Variability at Every Level
.47
.42
.28
psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger/
.58
Who’s leading whom?
Windowed
Correlations
Variability in Cross-Correlation
measurement.psy.miami.edu
What does face-to-face teach?
My partner is responsive to me
 I feel things with my partner
 I take turns with my partner


Depends on action modality
–
–
Smiles become shared
Vocalizations not
60
Mutual Influence
InfantMother
InfantMother and MotherInfant
Relation to bi-directional influence, synchrony…
Through mutual influence,
infants come to understand
themselves as social beings who
affect and are affected by others
61
Evidence of infant
expectations/intentionality

How do we know if infant really is
attempting to get interaction back on track?
–
–
Cease interaction
See if infant attempts to re-commence
interaction
62
The many faces of the StillFace Paradigm: A review
and meta-analysis
by Mesman, van IJzendoorn,
& Bakermans-Kranenburg
Face to Face-Still Face
Face to Face FF)
3 minutes
Still Face SF)
2 minutes
Reunion RE)
3 minutes
The Effect of the Still-Face



What happens during
the Still-face?
Positive affect decreases
Gaze to Mom decreases
Negative affect increases
What happens in the Reunion?
 Positive affect increases
 Gaze to Mom increases
 Negative affect doesn’t
change
Why does this pattern occur?




Tronick et al.: Violation of expectation
Field et al.: Infants need emotional feedback from partner
Fogel: Affective tolerance model
Overall, these theories hinge on the idea that mom and infant
influence each other
–
–
–
Mom helps baby regulate
Baby influences mom’s behavior
The SF episode disrupts this balance
Tronick explains SF:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0
Factors influencing the Still-Face
• Age?
Effects are present from 1 - 6 months…?
• Gender?
Very few
• Risk status?
Only in deaf infants
• Infant temperament?
Still unclear
• Maternal depression?
Mothers behave differently but there is
not a consistent infant response
• Maternal sensitivity?
Infants of sensitive mothers show:
• More regulatory behavior
• More positive affect
• Less negative affect during SF and RE
• Less avoidance during SF and RE
Can SF performance predict the future?

Later secure infants show more positive affect and eliciting
behavior
–


Duration of gaze as it relates to attachment?
Less positive infants had more behavior problems at 18 months
Greater reaction to the SF predicts increased joint attention
Other Questions


The administration of the SF differed over time
and across studies. Is there a best practice version
you would choose?
Most of these studies have been done on White
infant-mother dyads. Given last week’s
discussion, how might this change across cultures?
–

MLS
Will raised the question of meta-analysis
approaches. How might adding in unpublished
studies change the findings?
Maternal contingencyinfant
Bigelow, A. E., & Power, M. (2014). Effects of Maternal Responsiveness on
Infant Responsiveness and Behavior in the Still-Face Task. Infancy, 19(6),
558-584. doi: 10.1111/infa.12059
73
Still-faceSecurity
Autonomic results

Heart rate (HR) increases during still-face
–

HR declines slightly from SF to Re-engagement
–

Variability in HR declines
Variability goes up
Autonomic measures returned to baseline in reengagement after still-face
–
Unlike behavior

Where reunion was high in positive affect and negative affect
79
Does still-face

Violates infant expectations of interaction
and desire for social interaction
En-face posture says, “Hello let’s play!”
while still-face says, “I will not play!”

So that infants fuss and occasionally smile
as intentional bids to engage nonresponsive parent?
80
Or, does still-face

Simply withdraw parental scaffolding
–
vocal, facial, and gestural support of infant
behavior

So infant fusses and withdraws?

Developmental and experimental evidence
81
Individual Differences
Relatively stability of infant positive and
negative emotion between the face-to-face
and reunion
 Interest and gaze scanning stable between
the still-face and other episodes

–
Carter and Weinberg & Tronick
82
Weinberg, Tronick, Cohn, & Olson
Stability
83
In sum
Behavioral consistency between face-toface play and still-face is less than
consistency between face-to-face and reengagement
 Unclear whether happiness in interaction
predicts bids to continue during still-face

84
Intentionality
Image of goal - behavior - reaction
 Infants engage in non-elicited
communicative behaviors
 They expect reactions
 But at 6 months, there is little evidence that
they combine all of these features

85
Developmental test of still-face
Expectations of social interaction increase
in the first 6 months of life
 An increase in intentional bids (e.g., smiling
to elicit mother) should increase during
still-face
 But only looking away from mom increases
during still-face, not bidding

86
Longitudinal still-face studies
 Do
not show increases in smiling at
mother
 Only self-regulatory behaviors increase
–

e.g., gazing away, hand-sucking
Suggests infant is responding to parental
non-responsivity, lack of interactive support
87
Experimental:
Modified still-face test

Parent gazes over infant’s shoulder
–
–

Direction of gaze shows parent is not available
Less ‘contradiction’
No differences in infant behavior between
traditional and modified still-face
–
Also suggests infant is responding to parental
non-responsivity, lack of interactive support
•
Delgado, Messinger, & Yale 2002
• But see Markova
88