Not Just Being Lifted: Infants are Sensitive to Delay During a Pick-Up Routine

Abstract

In the present study we observed whether infants show online adjustments to the mother’s incipient action by looking at their sensitivity to changes as the pick-up unfolded. Twenty-three 3-month-old infants and their mothers were observed in the lab, where mothers were instructed (1) to pick-up their infants as they usually did (normal pick-up), and then (2) to delay the pick-up for 6 s after placing their hands on the infants’ waist (delayed pick-up). In both Normal and Delayed conditions infant’s body tension, affective displays and gaze shifts were coded during three phases: Approach, Contact, and Lift. Additionally, a measure of infants’ head support in terms of head lag at the beginning and end of Lift was computed. Results showed that during normal pick-up infants tensed up their body during the Approach phase and increased their tension during contact, maintaining it through Lift; their head was also supported and in line with their body during Lift. When the pick-up was delayed, infants also tensed their body during Approach, yet this tension did not increase during the Contact phase and was significantly lower at Lift. Their head support was also lower in the Delayed condition and they shifted their gazes away from their mothers’ face more often than in the Normal condition. These results suggest that infants are sensitive to changes of the timing of the pick-up sequence, which in turn may have affected their contribution to the interaction.

Taking Up an Active Role: Emerging Participation in Early Mother–Infant Interaction during Peekaboo Routines

“…Yet it does provide an interesting approach for looking into early participation and recognition of the global structure of routines by focusing on the individual steps of the peekaboo game and how the infants fit their behavior into these. In concert with the evidence suggesting that sequential structure affects early participation in interactions (Fantasia et al, 2015 ), it seems plausible that mothers who create more opportunities for their infants to take up their turn will have infants who participate more actively than other infants.…”

Under-three Year Olds in Policy and Practice

“…But this physical weakness and inexperience, which needs for a long period of parental care, does not prevent the baby from attending intelligently to people and what they are doing. The baby moves to join in actions of a helper who is picking up and carrying them (Fantasia et al, 2016), or one who is offering objects with admiration for the baby's actions, and for the mind that guides them. In a few weeks the baby is starting to use vocal sounds as signs for marking special experiences in a 'line mode' of consciousness that can be about non-present things or happenings 'someplace, sometime' (Donaldson, 1992, p. 50).…”

Making Sense of Infants’ Differential Responses to Incongruity

“…First, infants have also been observed to look longer at physically-possible-but-socially-unexpected events. For instance, Fantasia, Markova, Fasulo, Costall, & Reddy (2016) reported that 3-month-olds reacted with more frequent gaze shifts to a VOE. Mothers were instructed to reach for their babies and then stop with arms outstretched before actually picking up the baby.…”

“…The mechanical and automated action seems to afford less possibility for rich emotional reactions by infants and indeed by adults. This automated or mechanical quality may in fact also characterize the actions of the mothers in the still face studies, or those instructed to reach for their infants without completing the action of picking them up, or to perform a normal game without sound as described above (Fantasia et al, 2014(Fantasia et al, , 2016Tronick et al, 1975), and thus lead to an inability to make sense of the event.…”