Gunilla Stenberg

Selectivity in Infant Social Referencing

In laboratory studies of social referencing, infants as young as 12 months have been reported to prefer looking at the experimenter over the caregiver for clarifying information. From an expertise perspective, such behavior could be interpreted as if the infant seeks information from others and can discriminate between persons who have or do not have relevant information to provide in the laboratory. If this is the case, higher order cognitive capacities might be involved in infant selectivity in looking in social referencing situations. However, it has also been proposed that associative learning processes might account for infant preferences in such studies. To examine whether an expertise perspective or if more basic learning processes best explain infant selectivity in looking, 40 12-month-old infants were assigned to 1 of 2 comparable conditions. The experimenter versus the caregiver presented an ambiguous toy and delivered positive information about the toy. The infants preferred to look at the experimenter and they regulated their behavior more in accordance with information coming from the experimenter. Thus, an associative learning account cannot explain infant preferences in looking. The results are discussed in terms of an expertise perspective.

Social referencing and mood modification in 1-year-olds

There has been a discussion in the literature about the processes involved in infant behavior regulation. In this study, social referencing and mood modification were contrasted by looking for specificity in infant behavior regulation following different types of affective messages about a stimulus toy. Forty-eight 1-year-olds were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 maternal message conditions. In 2 conditions, the mothers conveyed a specific positive or negative message through both the facial and vocal channels. In 2 other conditions, the mothers conveyed a general positive or negative message through only the facial channel. For social referencing to be considered, the infants behavior had to be changed with regard to the toy and not to anything else. The mood modification hypothesis required the behavioral change to consist of a general alteration of reactions to many aspects of the environment. The results were interpreted as showing that specific messages give rise to social referencing, whereas general messages give rise to mood modification. It was clear that vocal signals are important in infant behavior regulation as early as the end of the first year.

Using a head-mounted camera to infer attention direction

A head-mounted camera was used to measure head direction. The camera was mounted to the forehead of 20 6- and 20 12-month-old infants while they watched an object held at 11 horizontal (−80° to + 80°) and 9 vertical (−48° to + 50°) positions. The results showed that the head always moved less than required to be on target. Below 30° in the horizontal dimension, the head undershoot of object direction was less than 5°. At 80°, however, the undershoot was substantial or between 10° and 15°. In the vertical dimension, the undershoot was larger than in the horizontal dimension. At 30°, the undershoot was around 25% in the downward direction and around 40% in the upward direction. The size of the undershoot was quite consistent between conditions. It was concluded that the head-mounted camera is a useful indicator of horizontal looking direction in a free looking situation where the head is only turned moderately from a straight ahead position.

What aspects of others’ behaviors do infants attend to in live situations?

A head-mounted camera was used for studying infant focus of attention. In two situations, 10- and 14-month-old infants observed two adults interacting. In one situation, the adults had a conversation and in the other situation, they were playing with blocks. The results indicate a preference for observing manual actions and a different pattern in looking at conversations than has been shown in eye-tracking studies. The head-mounted camera is a promising method for examining the infants focus of attention.

Social referencing in 10-month-old infants

In Experiment 1, forty 10-month-old infants participated together with an experimenter and a parent in a social referencing encounter. The experimenter or the parent presented an ambiguous toy. Neither of the adults provided information about the toy in order to examine infant spontaneous looking behaviour. The infants looked more at both adults when the experimenter presented the toy. In Experiment 2, forty-four 10-month-old infants participated. The experimenter or the parent provided positive information about an ambiguous toy. The infants played more with the toy when the experimenter provided information than when the parent did. The results are discussed in terms of seeking information from knowledgeable others in ambiguous situations.