Cognitive Set and Coping Strategy Affect Mothers' Sensitivity to Infant Cries: A Signal Detection Approach

We used Signal Detection methodology to examine how cognitive set affects mothers' response to an infant cry. We asked whether a cry from a "difficult" versus an "easy" infant would elicit a change in sensitivity or response bias in mothers' processing of these cries. T...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 1997-10, Vol.68 (5), p.760-772
Main Authors: Donovan, Wilberta L., Leavitt, Lewis A., Walsh, Reghan O.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Babies
Behavior
Biobehavioral Development, Perception, and Action
Biological and medical sciences
Child care
Child development
Coping
Crying
Developmental psychology
Emotional Response
Factors
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Heart rate
Illusion
Infant Behavior
Infants
Maternal Responsiveness
Maternal Sensitivity
Mental stimulation
Mothers
Newborn. Infant
Parent Child Relationship
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Response bias
Sensitivity
Signal detection
Signal Detection Theory
Social research
Temperament
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We used Signal Detection methodology to examine how cognitive set affects mothers' response to an infant cry. We asked whether a cry from a "difficult" versus an "easy" infant would elicit a change in sensitivity or response bias in mothers' processing of these cries. Thirty-eight mothers of 4- to 6-month-old infants participated in a Signal Detection task in which they were asked whether they could detect differences between a standard cry and 1 of 4 cry variants. Cry variants differed from the standard cry in small, systematic changes in fundamental frequency. The task was conducted in 2 parts; each part constituted a condition wherein mothers received a cognitive set manipulation that labeled the identical cry as coming from either a "difficult" or an "easy" infant. An increase in mothers' sensitivity was associated with the "difficult" infant cognitive set. We examined as well how a coping strategy (illusion of control) affected cry signal processing. Mothers who exhibited high illusory control were least sensitive in detecting differences between cries. Two information-processing measures, response time and heart rate, were also collected and showed that greater sensitivity was associated with more efficient processing of the cry signal.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01960.x