Dataset Information

"Dancing" Together: Infant-Mother Locomotor Synchrony.

ABSTRACT: Pre-mobile infants and caregivers spontaneously engage in a sequence of contingent facial expressions and vocalizations that researchers have referred to as a social "dance." Does this dance continue when both partners are free to move across the floor? Locomotor synchrony was assessed in 13- to 19-month-old infant-mother dyads (N = 30) by tracking each partner's step-to-step location during free play. Although infants moved more than mothers, dyads spontaneously synchronized their locomotor activity. For 27 dyads, the spatiotemporal path of one partner uniquely identified the path of the other. Clustering analyses revealed two patterns of synchrony (mother-follow and yo-yo), and infants were more likely than mothers to lead the dance. Like face-to-face synchrony, locomotor synchrony scaffolds infants' interactions with the outside world.

SUBMITTER: Hoch JE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8292452 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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"Dancing" Together: Infant-Mother Locomotor Synchrony.

Hoch Justine E JE Ossmy Ori O Cole Whitney G WG Hasan Shohan S Adolph Karen E KE

Child development 20210121 4

Pre-mobile infants and caregivers spontaneously engage in a sequence of contingent facial expressions and vocalizations that researchers have referred to as a social "dance." Does this dance continue when both partners are free to move across the floor? Locomotor synchrony was assessed in 13- to 19-month-old infant-mother dyads (N = 30) by tracking each partner's step-to-step location during free play. Although infants moved more than mothers, dyads spontaneously synchronized their locomotor act ...[more]

PMID: 33475164

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Project description:BackgroundAssessment of mother-child interactions is a core issue of early child development and psychopathology. This paper focuses on the concept of "synchrony" and examines (1) how synchrony in mother-child interaction is defined and operationalized; (2) the contribution that the concept of synchrony has brought to understanding the nature of mother-child interactions.MethodBetween 1977 and 2013, we searched several databases using the following key-words: "synchrony" "interaction" and "mother-child". We focused on studies examining parent-child interactions among children aged 2 months to 5 years. From the 63 relevant studies, we extracted study description variables (authors, year, design, number of subjects, age); assessment conditions and modalities; and main findings.ResultsThe most common terms referring to synchrony were mutuality, reciprocity, rhythmicity, harmonious interaction, turn-taking and shared affect; all terms were used to characterize the mother-child dyad. As a consequence, we propose defining synchrony as a dynamic and reciprocal adaptation of the temporal structure of behaviors and shared affect between interactive partners. Three main types of assessment methods for studying synchrony emerged: (1) global interaction scales with dyadic items; (2) specific synchrony scales; and (3) micro-coded time-series analyses. It appears that synchrony should be regarded as a social signal per se as it has been shown to be valid in both normal and pathological populations. Better mother-child synchrony is associated with familiarity (vs. unknown partner), a healthy mother (vs. pathological mother), typical development (vs. psychopathological development), and a more positive child outcomes.DiscussionSynchrony is a key feature of mother-infant interactions. Adopting an objective approach in studying synchrony is not a simple task given available assessment tools and due to its temporality and multimodal expression. We propose an integrative approach combining clinical observation and engineering techniques to improve the quality of synchrony analysis.

Dataset Information

"Dancing" Together: Infant-Mother Locomotor Synchrony.

Publications

"Dancing" Together: Infant-Mother Locomotor Synchrony.

Similar Datasets

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