Smiling and Fussing in Seven-Month-Old Preterm and Full-Term Black Infants in the Still-Face Situation

We investigated emotional responses to the still-face paradigm in 7-month-old preterm and full-term black infants. Baby FACS criteria were used to code the duration and intensity of infant smiles and the presence or absence of cry faces and fussy vocalizations within each episode. Infants in both gr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 1995-12, Vol.66 (6), p.1829-1843
Main Authors: Segal, Laura B., Oster, Harriet, Cohen, Morris, Caspi, Barbara, Myers, Michael, Brown, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affect
African Americans - psychology
Attention
Babies
Behavior
Black American people
Black people
Blacks
Child of Impaired Parents - psychology
Child psychology
Communication
Comparative Analysis
Comparison
Crying
Depression - psychology
Depressive disorders
Dyadic relations
Emotional development
Emotional expression
Emotional Response
Emotions
Face
Facial expressions
Female
Humans
Infant
Infant Behavior
Infant development
Infant, Newborn
Infant, Premature - psychology
Infants
Male
Mothers
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Personality
Personality Development
Premature babies
Premature Infants
Smiles
Smiling
Social interaction
Still Face Situation
Stillface effect
Test Validity
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Summary:We investigated emotional responses to the still-face paradigm in 7-month-old preterm and full-term black infants. Baby FACS criteria were used to code the duration and intensity of infant smiles and the presence or absence of cry faces and fussy vocalizations within each episode. Infants in both groups showed the still-face effect: a significant reduction in smiling from episode 1 (baseline) to episode 2 (maternal still-face) and partial return to baseline in episode 3 (recovery). A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) for big smiles yielded significant main effects for group and episode and a significant group X episode interaction. Preterm infants spent less time than full-term infants displaying big smiles in episode 1 and a less pronounced decrease in big smiles in episode 2. Maternal depressive symptoms did not differ significantly between groups. Counter to our expectations, depressive symptoms were positively associated with small-to-medium smiles in the baseline episode but not with big smiles in any episode. These findings confirm the robustness of the still-face paradigm and its potential usefulness for research on individual as well as group differences in affective communication in infants.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.2307/1131913