Jeffrey Pickens

Newborns of mothers with depressive symptoms are less expressive

The facial expressions of 40 newborns of mothers with depressive symptoms (n = 20) and of nondepressive mothers (n = 20) were recorded during the Brazelton Neonatal Behavior Assessment Scale and during the modeling of happy, sad, and surprised faces. Infants of mothers with depressive symptoms demonstrated inferior performance on the orientation cluster of the Brazelton scale and showed fewer interest and more precry expressions during the Brazelton. During the facial expression modeling, they showed less orientation and fewer facial expressions in response to the modeled happy and surprise facial expressions.

Vagal tone in infants of depressed mothers

Emotional reactivity and expressivity in infants have been previously correlated with vagal tone. This study investigated vagal tone of 3- and 6-month-old infants of depressed mothers. Vagal tone did not differ for infants of depressed versus nondepressed mothers at 3 months, but lower vagal tone was noted in infants of depressed versus nondepressed mothers at 6 months. The developmental increase in vagal tone that occurred between 3 and 6 months for infants of nondepressed mothers did not occur for infants of depressed mothers. Correlation analyses suggested that higher vagal tone at 6 months was related to more vocalizations and more optimal neurological scores.

EEG Stability in Infants/Children of Depressed Mothers

The stability of EEG was examined in infants of depressed (BDI > 16) and non-depressed mothers (BDI < 9) from 3 months to 3 years. Of the 32 infants seen at 3 months, 15 were seen again at 3 years of age. Seven of the eight children who had exhibited right frontal EEG asymmetry as infants still showed that EEG asymmetry pattern at the 3 year visit. Children with right frontal EEG asymmetry at 3 years were observed to be more inhibited during an exploratory play task, and children of depressed versus non-depressed mothers were less empathetic during simulated maternal distress.

Full-term and preterm infants' perception of face-voice synchrony

Abstract This study investigated auditory-visual matching of faces and voices by preterm versus full-term infants at 3, 5, and 7 months of age. A total of 141 infants were tested using a two-screen preference procedure in which subjects were presented side-by-side videos of two females reciting nursery ryhmes while a centrally presented voice soundtrack was synchronized with only one film. A significantly higher rate of visual fixation to the sound-matching films was observed in the full-term 3- and 7-month groups, but not at 5 months. Longitudal testing confirmed the U- shaped development curve for full-term infants task performance. In contrast to full terms, preterm infants did not display evidence of detecting face—voice synchrony. This suggests that an auditory—visual matching deficit may be associated with infant prematurity.

Classification of bimodal English and Spanish language passages by infants

Abstract This research was undertaken to assess whether 5-month-old infants could discriminate and classify audible and visible, English and Spanish speech passages on the basis of language membership. Forty-eight infants were tested in an infant-control visual habituation procedure. They were habituated to a video display of a woman reciting one of two passages in either English or Spanish. Variables such as speaker identity, meter, number of syllables, affect, facial motion, and speed and intensity of speech were controlled across the English and Spanish versions of each passage. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three discrimination test conditions: (a) a no-change control, (b) a new passage presented in the old language, or (c) a new passage presented in the new language. It was expected that if infants were capable of classifying passages on the basis of language membership, they would show significant recovery to the new passage when it was presented in the new language, relative to the performance of control subjects, but would generalize habituation across passages of the old language. Results confirmed these expectations. A second experiment identical to the first except for the presentation of silent visual displays demonstrated that classification of languages was not based on visual information for speech. Rather, the auditory information was necessary for classification. These findings are discussed in the context of an invariant-detection view of perceptual development.

Depressed mothers' and their infants' interactions with nondepressed partners

Twenty depressed adolescent mothers were videotaped interacting with their own infant and with the infant of a nondepressed mother. In addition. nondepressed mothers were videotaped with their own infant as well as with the infant of a depressed mother. Depressed mothers showed less facial expressivity than nondepressed mothers and received less optimal interaction rating scale scores (a sum- mary score for state, physical activity, head orientation, gaze, silence during gaze aversion, facial expres- sions, vocalizations, infantized behavior, contingent responsivity, and gameplaying). This occurred in- dependent of whether they were interacting with their own infant versus an infant of a nondepressed mother, suggesting that depressed mothers display less optimal behaviors to infants in general. The infants of both depressed and nondepressed mothers received better head orientation and summary ratings when they were interacting with another mother, perhaps because the other mother was more novel. Infants of nondepressed mothers, in particular, had better summary ratings (state, physical activity, head onenta- tion, gaze, facial expressions, fussiness, and vocalizations) than the infants of depressed mothers when interacting with depressed mothers. Thus, it may be thathfants of nondepressed mothers are generally better interaction partners than infants of depressed mothers. Another related possibility is that they per- sist longer in trying to elicit a response from mothers less responsive than their own, given that they have learned to expect a response to their behavior.

Perception of Auditory-Visual Distance Relations by 5-Month-Old Infants.

This study investigated whether, and on what basis, 5-month-old infants perceive auditory-visual distance relations. A 2-screen visual preference procedure was used in which infants viewed side by side videotaped toy trains (in 4 visual conditions) along with increasing or decreasing amplitude lawnmower engine sounds from a central speaker designed to match one of the videos. Results suggest that 5-month-olds were sensitive to auditory-visual distance relations and that changing size was an important visual depth cue. Infants did not show evidence of matching in other conditions in which the soundtracks were paired with videos depicting shifts in the trains luminance or showing the train moving vertically with no change in size

Inventoried and observed stress in parent-child interactions

It has been hypothesized that parental stress results in poor parent-child interactions. However, this has not been adequately researched due to the difficulty in measuring and quantifying parenting stress and parent-child interaction quality. Two measures were employed in the present study to evaluate the parent-child relationship. The Marschak Interaction Method (MIM) was used to provide a context in which to assess the quality of parent-child interactions, and the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) was used as a measure of stress in the family system. The present study (1) developed a standardized behavioral rating system for the MIM, (2) tested 46 parent-child dyads with the MIM and PSI, and (3) assessed which subscales of the PSI were the best predictors of parent-child behavior observed during the MIM. Parents reporting more stress on the PSI were rated as displaying significantly lower quality (more negative) parentchild interactions. In addition, parents’ socioeconomic status accounted for 65 % of the variance, and parental stress accounted for an additional 9% of the variance, in MIM behavior ratings.

Attention‐getting vs. imitation effects on depressed mother‐infant interactions

The effects of instructing mothers to “imitate” their infant versus “keep their infants atten tion” were examined during mother-infant face-to-face interactions of 18 mothers reporting depressive symptoms as compared with 22 mothers who did not report such symptoms. Mothers were generally rated as showing more positive facial expressions and more game playing (particularly the depressed mothers) during the attention-getting versus the imitation sessions. The infants received more optimal physical ac tivity, and facial expression ratings during attention getting, and the infants of depressed mothers, in par ticular, showed more positive facial expressivity and more joy expressions. As might be expected for the imitation condition, mothers showed more imitative behavior, contingent responsivity, and silence during gaze aversion. Infants generally showed more disinterest and self-comfort behaviors, and the infants of depressed mothers, in particular, showed more anger expressions, fussiness, and squirming during the imitation condition. The data suggest that the attention-getting condition was the most effective “intervention” for eliciting positive behavior in the depressed mother-infant dyads.

Frontal EEG asymmetry in response to emotional vignettes in preschool age children

EEG recordings were conducted with preschool children during presentations of videotaped vignettes depicting a fictional young child experiencing happy, sad, angry, and fearful events. Significant EEG asymmetry in the frontal region (left frontal activation) occurred during all types of emotional vignettes, but not during baseline periods (a neutral star-field image presented before and after each vignette). This pattern of left frontal cortical activation during each emotional vignette may represent a generally positive and low intensity emotional “approach” response even in the case of the negative emotion vignettes. These children displayed mostly neutral facial expressions during the vignettes, with some evidence of lip movements during the negative episodes (suggesting that the stories were eliciting some mild emotional responses or empathy). There was no evidence of more intense emotional responses that have been associated with right frontal cortical activation. These EEG patterns may reflect cortical mechanisms underlying mild emotional responses and affective displays in preschool children, as well as their developing ability to regulate their affective systems.