The development of timing

1. The development of timing Daniel Messinger, Marygrace Yale, Alan Cobo-Lewis, Alan Fogel, Meg Venezia, Susan Acosta, Danielle Thorp, Peter Mundy, & Tricia Cassel Supported by NICHD 38336 & 41619 & The Positive Psychology Foundation

2. Timing of expressive actions Window into real-time experience and interaction • Emotion expression central to infant communication • Developmental roots of emotion regulation • Beginning of referential communication

3. Timing early expressive behaviors • How do infants coordinate expressive actions in time and how does this change with age?What is an event-based approach? Which pairs of infant expressive behaviors are coordinated in time (facial expressions and vocalizations, facial expressions and gazes at a parent’s face, and/or vocalizations and gazes) and what does this suggest for the role of facial expressions? Indicate two patterns in which infant gazes and smiles are coordinated with mother smiles? How do all these patterns  change with age? What does this suggest about infant-mother interaction?

4. Face-to-face/still-face • Promise of assessing infant communicative intentionality • Relatively little focus on individual infants • And their sequences of communicative behaviors • Either in the still-face or regular face-to-face

5. Intentional Bid?

6. Overall research goal • Assessing intentionality by directly coding early infant communicative bids has proved difficult • Communicative coordination may provide a window on the interactive development of intentionality

7. B1 B2 GAZE SMILE Unit of association = Patterns of actions (e.g., B1 & B2) Events as unit of analysis Overlapping behaviors create an expressive signal dependent on how they are patterned in time Beyond duration of co-occurrence

8. Generic Observed Patterns • A BEFORE B. E.g., Smile before Gaze • A smile which begins before and ends within a gaze at parent’s face. • A IN B. E.g., Smile in Gaze • A smile which begins and ends within a gaze at parent’s face. • B BEFORE A. E.g., Gaze before Smile • A gaze at parent which begins before and ends within a smile. • B IN A. E.g., Gaze in Smile • A gaze at parent’s face which begins and ends within a smile.

9. Time SM SM SM SM Smiles No Smiles Gazes Away Gazes at Mom Simulation Procedure Take Observed Pattern Expressions Smile in Gaze Gazes Separate into Observed Behaviors

10. Time SM SM SM SM Use observed behaviors to create simulated sequences Observed Behaviors Gazes Away Gazes at Mom No Smiles Smiles To Create Simulated Pattern Smile Gaze

11. Smile Subtract Time SM SM SM SM Smile Simulated Random Pattern Gaze Simulation indicates patterns not due to chance Observed Pattern Smile in Gaze! Gaze Repeat 2000 times. Z = (Observed – Simulated)/SDS

12. Facial Expression --?-- Vocalization Gaze Study 1: Early infant communication • Facial expressions (smiles & frowns) • Vocalizations (non-reflexive vocalizations) • Gaze direction (gazing at parent’s face & other) • 40 infants at 3- & 6-months of age in modified face-to-face/still-face • Yale, Messinger, Cobo-Lewis, et al. (1999; in press, Developmental Psychology) • 12 & 40 infants at 3- & 6-months of age in modified face-to-face/still-face

13. Facial expression & vocalization Facial Expression • Facial expressions encompass vocalizations in a pattern that does not change with age or expression - replicated Vocalization

14. Facial expressions and gaze • Facial expressions – especially smiles - begin during gazes at parent’s face • Stronger with age & smile Facial Expression Gaze

15. --?-- Vocalization Gaze Vocalization & Gaze • Vocalizations and gazes at parent were not coordinated in time

16. Centrality of facial expressions • Facial expressions - both smiles and frowns - begin during gazes at parent’s face • Facial expressions encompass vocalizations • Vocalizations and gazes at parent were not coordinated in time

17. Facial Expression --?-- Vocalization Gaze Dynamic formation of patterns • Communicative package is not pre-formed, but emerges through two links • Gaze at parent’s face sets the stage: • for a facial expression • into which a vocalization is likely to be inserted Communicative signal dynamically assembles in real-time

18. Development of timing?Smile in gaze  Smile after gaze

19. Study 2. Interaction & developmental process • 13 mothers and infants • Interacting weekly in first 6 months of life • Data summed monthly • Infant gazes at mother’s face • Infant smiles • Mother smiles • Analyses relating infant and mother smiles are preliminary • Messinger, et al. • (in prep.)

20. Infant gaze  Infant smile  Stops gaze  Stops smile Smile after gaze

21. Emotion regulation development • Continuous visual contact scaffolds positive affect between 1 - 3 months as infants embed smiles in gazes at parent. • Infants gaze away from parent while smiling between 4 - 6 months, perhaps in the service of emotion regulation - replicated

22. Mother Smile Infant Smile .6 .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 0 Infant smile  Mother smile  Infant stops  Mother stops

23. More emotion regulation development in real-time • Between 4 – 6 months, infant smile elicits mother smile and infant stops smiling, perhaps also in the service of emotion regulation • Video

24. Mother Smile Infant Gaze Infant Smile Emotion regulation development • Infant and mother create moments of mutual positive affect • Infants show increasingly strong positive affect in this period • Infants increasingly manage their own responses by briefly disengaging from these encounters

25. Video example

26. Development of coordination • When infants gaze away from mother while smiling, it creates a potential bridge to focus on another object . . . • Alternating gaze between an object and social partner defines joint attention which develops between 8 & 12 months and often involves smiling • Timing: Anticipatory Smiles involve sharing positive affect with a partner during joint attention

27. Early smile before gaze less than expected by chance

28. Study 3. Roots of affective sharing • 26 typically developing infants • Administered the Early Social-Communication Scales at 8, 10 and 12 months of age • During episodes of joint attention (JA) • alternating gaze between object and experimenter • Proportion of JA episodes involving smiles • Proportion of Anticipatory Smiles: • Smiles at an object followed by smiling gaze at the experimenter • Conventional analyses

29. Anticipatory smile Gaze at object → Smile → Gaze at experimenter

30. Anticipatory smile

31. Only anticipatory smiling rises

32. Communicative milestone • Anticipatory smiling, not smiling in general, became a more likely feature of joint attention • When infants gaze at an object, smile, and then gaze at their social partners, it suggests the infants are intentionally sharing something specific - positive emotion about an object – with another.

33. Development of timing • A variety of methods can help us understand • The lived or real-time experiences of • Infants communicating • Infants and parents interacting • Infants and experimenters interacting • Revealing the central role of emotional facial expressions, the roots of emotion regulation, and the development of affective sharing.