Caregiver-infant interactions

Caregiver-infant interactions

1. Reciprocity

   • Responding to the action of another with a similar action, where the actions of one partner elicit a response from the other partner. The responses are not necessarily similar as in interactional synchrony.
   • Research in the 1970's demonstrated that infants coordinated their actions with their caregivers in a kind of conversation. From birth babies move in a rhythm when interacting with an adult almost as if taking turns, as people do when having a conversation. THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF RECIPROCITY
   • Jaffe et al, 1973 (Infants coordinated their actions) Brazelton, 1979, suggests basic rhythm is important in later communications

2. Interactional synchrony

   • When two people interact they tend to mirror what the other is doing in terms of their facial and body movements. This includes imitating emotions as well as behaviours. This is described as a synchrony. 
   • Psychologists have described a slightly different kind of interaction between infants and caregivers called interactional synchrony. One systematic study shows infants as young as two or three weeks imitating specific facial and hand gestures. Later on a study done with an infant of three days old was done showing the same synchrony. Thus ruling out the possibility that the imitation behaviours are learny and it must be innate.
   • Meltzoff and Moore, 1977

3. Real or Pseudo Imitation?

   • Real
     • Deliberate imitation
     • Meltzoff and Moore propose that imitation is intentional, due to Murray and Trevarthen (1985), by doing a two way study involving one scenario or interaction in real time, the next a tape where there was no imitation. As a result acute distress was shown indicating the infant is eliciting a response rather than displaying a response that has been rewarded.
   • Pseudo
     • Imitation due to operant conditioning (positive reinforcment)
     • Jean Piaget believed that true imitation only developed towards the end of the first year and anything before this was a response training, since the action is often rewarded in the form of food or a reaction, since a smile may be seen as rewarding to the infant, they are more likely to repeat the behaviour next time because of positive reinforcement.

4. Evaluation

   • Problems with testing infant behaviour
     • Unreliable since infants are constantly in motion especially with gestures , therefore harder to distinguish between the two.
     • Can overcome with someone to watch footage and determine which behaviour is imitated increasing validity
   • Failure to replicate
     • Koepke et al (1983) failed to replicate Meltzoff and Moore (1977), counter-argued that the former wasn't controlled
   • Is the behaviour model intentional?
     • In an experiment conducted by Abravanel and Deyong (1991), they made infants interact with objects, however imitation was not elicited therefore it is only a specific social response to other humans

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