INFANT TIMING WITH MOTHER AND STRANGER APPLYING AN ADULT DIALOGUE MODEL

Abstract

Mutual influence in interpersonal timing was investigated in the kinesic-affective exchanges of four-month-old female infants interacting in face-to-face play with their mothers and an experienced, attuned experimenter as a stranger. Three infants, each interacting with mother and a stranger, were videotaped in face-to-face play. The videotapes were converted to 16 mm film and analyzed frame-by-frame. The data consisted of infant and mother/stranger orientation, gaze, and facial changes as assessed by an engagement scale developed by Beebe and Gerstman (1980). Four parameters of kinesic conversation, adapted from the Jaffe and Feldstein (1970) model of adult dialogue, were applied to the data to assess whether the infant with his mother and with an experienced, attuned stranger is capable of significant mutual influence to match durations of specific parameters of movement, hold, turn, and simultaneous movement segment. A time series regression analysis was used to analyze three- and five-second sample bins across both data bases.;The infant at four months is capable of mutual influence to match selected speech-derived parameters with both mother and stranger, and more so with stranger. The findings point to the infant's capacity, given his interaction with an experienced, attuned stranger, rather than what he could do with an average stranger. The three-second analysis yielded a predominantly compensatory (negative sign) mutual influence to match, such that, as one partner's durations become longer, the other partner's durations become shorter. The five-second analysis yielded significant reciprocal (positive sign) mutual influence to match with the stranger only. In both reciprocal and compensatory matching, the pair has to be able to time one another's behavior. Both types of matching are seen to represent the infant's active capacity to titrate and integrate information in order to continue the kinesic conversation and to learn.;The three-second sample bins were considered more reliable, given previous research indicating the limits on the infant's capacity to detect contingencies (Millar, 1972).