Relations between cyclicity and regulation in mother-infant interaction at 3 and 9 months and cognition at 2 years

doi:10.1016/S0193-3973(96)90031-3

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

Volume 17, Issue 3, July–September 1996, Pages 347-365

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0193-3973(96)90031-3 Get rights and content

Abstract

This report addresses the relation between early interactive rhythms as determined by microanalysis and later toddler cognition. Thirty-six mother-infant dyads were videotaped in free play at 3 and 9 months. Mother and infant attentive states were recorded on an attentive-affective scale in .25s intervals and analyzed using time-series techniques. Synchrony between time-series of mother and infant was examined with cross correlations. At 2 years children were tested with the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. A stochastic-cyclic organization of the infant's attention at 3 months (a pattern reflecting some degree of oscillation between attentive states) predicted general and verbal IQ. At 9 months, organized but not cyclic infant play predicted general IQ. Two measures of maternal regulation at 3 months, mother synchrony with the infant assessed by microanalysis and maternal regulation assessed globally, predicted visual IQ. The temporal organization of infant social attention was individually stable from 3 to 9 months and had concurrent and long-term correlations with mother-infant synchrony. Results are discussed in terms of information processing, the relations of biological, social, and cognitive regulatory mechanisms, and the associations between self- and mutual regulation during the first year and cognitive competence.

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Behavioural mimicry appears to increase with age: for example, Feldman and colleagues used cross-correlations to measure how the strength of associations in facial affect between infants and parents varies over time. They found that both infant->mother and mother->infant influences increased from 3 months to 9 months (Feldman et al., 1996). With increasing age, other factors such as social context increasingly mediate and modulate mimicry (van Schaik and Hunnius, 2016).
An individual’s early interactions with their environment are thought to be largely passive; through the early years, the capacity for volitional control develops. Here, we consider: how is the emergence of volitional control characterised by changes in the entrainment observed between internal activity (behaviour, physiology and brain activity) and the sights and sounds in our everyday environment (physical and social)? We differentiate between contingent responsiveness (entrainment driven by evoked responses to external events) and oscillatory entrainment (driven by internal oscillators becoming temporally aligned with external oscillators). We conclude that ample evidence suggests that children show behavioural, physiological and neural entrainment to their physical and social environment, irrespective of volitional attention control; however, evidence for oscillatory entrainment beyond contingent responsiveness is currently lacking. Evidence for how oscillatory entrainment changes over developmental time is also lacking. Finally, we suggest a mechanism through which periodic environmental rhythms might facilitate both sensory processing and the development of volitional control even in the absence of oscillatory entrainment.
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The present research is the first multi-level hyperscanning study on naturalistic mother-infant interactions with infants as young as 4 months of age. Caregiver-infant interactions between 4-6 months allow us a unique opportunity to examine infants’ developing social capacities (Feldman et al., 1996; Stern, 1985; Tronick, 1989). Importantly, these interactions robustly predict later social and cognitive development (e.g., Beebe et al. 2010, Field 1995, Isabella and Belsky 1991).
Caregiver touch plays a vital role in infants’ growth and development, but its role as a communicative signal in human parent-infant interactions is surprisingly poorly understood. Here, we assessed whether touch and proximity in caregiver-infant dyads are related to neural and physiological synchrony. We simultaneously measured brain activity and respiratory sinus arrhythmia of 4–6-month-old infants and their mothers (N=69 dyads) in distal and proximal joint watching conditions as well as in an interactive face-to-face condition. Neural synchrony was higher during the proximal than during the distal joint watching conditions, and even higher during the face-to-face interaction. Physiological synchrony was highest during the face-to-face interaction and lower in both joint watching conditions, irrespective of proximity. Maternal affectionate touch during the face-to-face interaction was positively related to neural but not physiological synchrony. This is the first evidence that touch mediates mutual attunement of brain activities, but not cardio-respiratory rhythms in caregiver-infant dyads during naturalistic interactions. Our results also suggest that neural synchrony serves as a biological pathway of how social touch plays into infant development and how this pathway could be utilized to support infant learning and social bonding.
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Although some studies focused on the influence of maternal behavior (Beebe & Gerstman, 1984), and others focused on the influence of the infant in generating those behaviors (Brazelton et al., 1974), the work of Cohn and Tronick (1988) empirically reinforced the bi-directionality of influence in mother-infant interaction. In fact, one of the most relevant outcomes of microanalytic research was to show that patterns of mother-infant interpersonal adaptation, as early as 3 to 4-months-old, can predict attachment style and cognitive development at later ages (Beebe & Steele, 2016; Beebe et al., 2010; Feldman & Greenbaum, 1997; Feldman, Greenbaum, Yirmiya, & Mayes, 1996; Jaffe et al., 2001). Unpacking these behaviors and dynamics has shown that microanalysis can help us not only understand the development of social and emotional processes in the infant, but also detect maladaptive patterns and intervene in early relationships, long before they can even be experimentally assessed.
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^☆: This research was supported by the Levine Center for Child and Adolescent Development, by the Rothchild Foundation Fellowship, and by the Arrane Foundation.

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Relations between cyclicity and regulation in mother-infant interaction at 3 and 9 months and cognition at 2 years☆

Abstract

Early Human Development

Intelligence

Infant Behavior and Development

Intelligence

Infant Behavior and Development

Child Abuse & Neglect

Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry

Infant Behavior and Development

Brain Research

Micro-timing in mother-infant interaction and communication

Vocal congruence in mother-infant play

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

The “packaging” of maternal stimulation in relation to the infant facial-visual engagement

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly

Maternal stimulation and infant exploratory competence: Cross-sectional, correlational, and experimental analyses

Child Development

How infant and mother jointly contribute to developing cognitive competence in the child

Continuity in mental development from infancy

Child Development

The origins of reciprocity in early mother-infant interaction

Swallowing and the organization of sucking in the human newborn

Child Development

Emotion regulation: Influences of attachment relationships

Monographs of the Society for research in Child Development

The measurement of intelligence of infants and young children

Facilitating mother-infant communication: A treatment model for high risk and developmentally delayed infants

Infant Mental Health Journal

Mother-infant face-to-face interaction: The sequence of dyadic states at 3, 6 and 9 months

Developmental Psychology

Mother-infant face-to-face interaction: Influence is bidirectional and unrelated to periodic cycles in either partner's behavior

Developmental Psychology

Individual differences in infant visual attention: Are short lookers faster processors or feature processors?

Child Development

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale

Infant predictors of preschool and adult IQ: A study of infant twins and their parents

Developmental Psychology

Individuality, context, and the search for meaning

Child Development

Rhythmicity and synchrony between mother and infant during the first year of life

Coordinated interpersonal timing in adult-infant vocal interaction: A cross-site replication

Infant Behavior and Development

Attentional abilities and maternal scaffolding in the first year of life

International Journal of Psychology

Cognitive development

Cognitive development: Past, present and future

Developmental Psychology

Temporal organization in mother-infant face-to-face interaction

Cyclicity and stability in mother-infant face-to-face interaction: A comment on Cohn and Tronick (1988)

Child Development

Development of early expressive and communicative action: Reinterpreting the evidence from a dynamic system perspective

Developmental Psychology

Time-series analysis: A comprehensive introduction for social sciences

The analysis of dominance and bidirectionality in social development

Child Development

The Jerusalem perinatal study: The first decade (1964–1977)

Israel Medical Journal

Developmental psychology in the context of older behavioral sciences

Developmental Psychology

Relationships as regulators

Psychosomatic Medicine

The risk-environment interaction and developmental outcome: A theoretical perspective