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Infants' Responses to Facial and Vocal Emotional Signals in a Social Referencing Paradigm
Author(s) -
Mumme Donna L.,
Fernald Anne,
Herrera Carla
Publication year - 1996
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/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01910.x
Subject(s) - psychology , facial expression , developmental psychology , emotional expression , audiology , nonverbal communication , modality (human–computer interaction) , communication , medicine , human–computer interaction , computer science
The independent effects of facial and vocal emotional signals and of positive and negative signals on infant behavior were investigated in a novel toy social referencing paradigm. 90 12‐month‐old infants and their mothers were assigned to an expression condition (neutral, happy, or fear) nested within a modality condition (face‐only or voice‐only). Each infant participated in 3 trials: a baseline trial, an expression trial, and a final positive trial. We found that fearful vocal emotional signals, when presented without facial signals, were sufficient to elicit appropriate behavior regulation. Infants in the fear‐voice condition looked at their mothers longer, showed less toy proximity, and tended to show more negative affect than infants in the neutral‐voice condition. Happy vocal signals did not elicit differential responding. The infants' sex was a factor in the few effects that were found for infants' responses to facial emotional signals.