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Mothers, Fathers, and Infants: The Role of Person Familiarity and Parental Involvement in Infants’ Perception of Emotion Expressions
Author(s) -
Montague Diane P.F.,
Walker–Andrews Arlene S.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00475
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , facial expression , perception , preference , expression (computer science) , communication , neuroscience , computer science , programming language , economics , microeconomics
The roles of person familiarity and parental involvement in 3.5–month–old infants’ sensitivity to the dynamic emotion expressions of others were explored. In the home, parental facial/vocal expressions (happy, sad, angry) were videotaped, and measures of parent–infant involvement were obtained. In the laboratory, 32 infants alternately viewed their mother and father and an unfamiliar woman and man portraying expressions in an intermodal preference task. Infants looked differentially at mothers’ expressions but not at those of fathers or unfamiliar adults. Examination of parent–child involvement patterns revealed significant relations with infants’ sensitivity to expressions. Results suggest that person familiarity may facilitate infants’ developing understanding of others’ emotion expressions, and that individual differences in family dynamics may be relevant to infants’ patterns of responding.