Stanley Feldstein

Adult-like temporal characteristics of mother-infant vocal interactions

29 mothers and their 9-month-old-infants participated in a semistructured play episode. The temporal patterning of their vocal behavior was analyzed by means of a computerized analogue-to-digital conversion system (AVTA). Time-series regression analysis was employed to determine interpersonal influence over the course of the exchange for a variety of temporal parameters. The analysis revealed that the dyads engaged in alternating vocalization to a greater degree than simultaneous vocalization, and that there is a pattern of mutual influence (interpersonal accommodation) for switching pauses. The results suggest that some of the formal attributes observed in conversational exchanges between adult speakers are observable prior to the emergence of linguistic competence.

Infant gaze, head, face and self-touch at 4 months differentiate secure vs. avoidant attachment at 1 year: A microanalytic approach

The study attempted to distinguish avoidant vs. secure infants at 1 year from 4-month infant behavior only, during a face-to-face play interaction with the mother. Thirty-five 4-month-old infants were coded second by second for infant gaze, head orientation, facial expression and self-touch/mouthing behavior. Mother behavior was not coded. At 1 year, 27 of these infants were classified as secure (B), and 8 as avoidant (A) attachment in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Compared with the B infant, the future A infant spent less time paying ‘focused’ visual attention (a look of a minimum 2 seconds duration) to the mothers face. Only if the A infant engaged in self-touch/mouthing behavior did its focused visual attention match that of the B. Markovian t to t+1 transition matrices then showed that both for future A and for future B infants, focused visual attention on the mother constrained the movements of the head to within 60 degrees from center vis-à-vis, defining head/gaze co-ordination within an attentional-interpersonal space. However, infant maintenance of head/gaze co-ordination was associated with self-touch/mouthing behavior for the A infant but not the B. Positive affect was associated with a disruption of head/gaze co-ordination for the A but not the B. Whereas the B had more variable facial behavior, potentially providing more facial signaling for the mother, the A had more variable tactile/mouthing behavior, changing patterns of self-soothing more often. Thus, infants classified as A vs. B at 12 months showed different behavioral patterns in face-to-face play with their mothers as early as 4 months.

Six-Week Postpartum Maternal Self-Criticism and Dependency and 4-Month Mother-Infant Self- and Interactive Contingencies.

Associations of 6-week postpartum maternal self-criticism and dependency with 4-month mother-infant self- and interactive contingencies during face-to-face play were investigated in 126 dyads. Infant and mother face, gaze, touch, and vocal quality were coded second by second from split-screen videotape. Self- and interactive contingencies were defined as auto- and lagged cross-correlation, respectively, using multilevel time-series models. Statistical significance was defined as p<.05. Regarding self-contingency, (a) more self-critical mothers showed primarily lowered self-contingency, whereas their infants showed both lowered and heightened, and (b) infants of more dependent mothers showed primarily lowered self-contingency, whereas findings were absent in mothers. Regarding interactive contingency, (a) more self-critical mothers showed lowered attention and emotion contingencies but heightened contingent touch coordination with infant touch, and (b) more dependent mothers and their infants showed heightened facial/vocal interactive contingencies. Thus, maternal self-criticism and dependency have different effects on mother-infant communication.

Vocal cues to deception: a comparative channel approach.

The study investigated the leakage potential of different voice and speech cues using a cue isolation and masking design. Speech samples taken from an earlier experiment were used in which 15 female students of nursing dissimulated negative affect produced by an unpleasant movie or told the truth about positive affect following a pleasant movie. Several groups of judges rated these speech samples in five conditions: (1) forward or clear, (2) electronic filtering, (3) random splicing, (4) backwards, (5) pitch inversion, (6) tone-silence sequences. The results show that vocal cues do indeed carry leakage information and that, as reflected in the differences among the conditions masking different types of cues respectively, voice quality cues may be centrally implicated. In addition, gender differences in decoding ability are discussed.

Health‐Related Quality‐of‐Life Assessment of Patients with Life‐Threatening Ventricular Arrhythmias

The purpose of this study was to determine whether treatments for life‐threatening ventricular arrhythmias are associated with quality‐of‐life (QOL) and psychological distress. Multidimensional measures of QOL and psychological distress were used to cross‐sectionally compare patients with ICDs to patients treated with antiarrhythmic drugs and patients without serious cardiac conditions. The sample consisted of 157 patients: 35 patients treated with antiarrhythmic medication only, 24 patients treated with ICD only, 25 patients treated with ICD and antiarrhythmic medication, and 73 controls. Patients completed the Medical Outcomes Study SF‐36 health survey, the Brief Symptom Inventory, and background questionnaires. There were no significant differences in self‐reported QOL and psychological distress between patients with or without ICD, and the occurrence of defibrillator shocks was unrelated to QOL and psychological distress. However, patients treated with antiarrhythmic drugs reported greater QOL impairment in physical functioning, vitality, emotional role limitations, and sleep, as well as greater psychological distress than patients not treated with antiarrhythmics. These limitations may be attributed to adverse effects arising from antiarrhythmic pharmacotherapy. Results of the present investigation suggest that QOL and psychological distress are maintained among ICD patients, whereas treatment with antiarrhythmic drugs are associated with a diminished QOL and greater psychological distress. These findings may assist cardiologists to select the optimal treatment for life‐threatening ventricular arrhythmias that minimizes disturbances in health‐related QOL and psychological distress and increases patient compliance.

Coordinated interpersonal timing in adult-infant vocal interactions: A cross-site replication**

Coordinated interpersonal tinning exists when the temporal pattern of each partner in a dialogue is predictable from that of the other. Using a completely automated microanalytic technique to time the sequence of vocal sounds and silences in an interaction, we studied 28 four-month-old infants in face-to-face play with mother and a female stranger. Fifteen infants were recorded on one site and 13 at another. Time-series regression was used to evaluate the direction and magnitude of interpersonal prediction. Results indicated that (a) significant coordination (or its absence) occurred at both sites for 90% of the comparisons, and (b) the lag that best predicted the partner was 20 to 30 s at both sites. Unlike the labor-intensive microanalytic coding techniques that have dominated mother-infant interaction research, this work has the following advantages: (a) the automated instrumentation times behavior with a precision unobtainable by the unaided human observer; (b) the sound-silence variables are unambiguously defined for computer processing; and (c) the microanalytic method is applicable to large-sample studies. This automated method has shown its clinical utility in its power to predict 1-year developmental outcomes from 4-month coordinated interpersonal timing.

MARKOVIAN MODEL OF TIME PATTERNS OF SPEECH.

The time pattern of speech is describable as a first-order Markov process when presence or absence is sampled at a rate of 200 times per minute. Two types of monolog were generated under different conditions of environmental constraint. Although both fit the model, estimates of their mean range of statistical dependency differed significantly.

Changes in Vocal Intensity as a Function of Interspeaker Influence

The purpose of the present study was to analyze vocal intensity in a prior study as an interpersonal cue in verbal communication. Reanalysis indicates that intensity is both a stable and modifiable characteristic of interpersonal communication and suggests that variations in levels of vocal intensity of conversational partners may convey information about their relationship to each other.

The Relation Between Coordinated Interpersonal Timing and Maternal Sensitivity in Four-Month-Old Infants

The relation between mother–infant coordinated interpersonal timing, an automated microanalytic measure of dyadic vocal coordination, and maternal sensitivity was explored. Thirty-five mothers and their developmentally normal 4-month-old infants were audio-recorded during a 20-min laboratory vocal interaction session, that was later analyzed for degree of vocal coordination. Maternal Sensitivity ratings (Ainsworth & Bell, 1969) were based on a video-taped 45-min unstructured laboratory interaction period. A significant curvilinear relation between the degree to which mother coordinated her noninterruptive co-occurring speech to that of her infant was found and revealed that mothers highest in sensitivity were characterized by moderate levels of coordination. Examining mother-infant interaction at the specific behavioral level, while incorporating tests of nonlinear trends, may provide important information about the nature of sensitive parenting.

The Chronography of Interactions with Autistic Speakers: An Initial Report.

The aims of this study were to (a) describe the conversational time patterns of autistic persons capable of talking, and (b) examine the degree to which the autistic speakers synchronize the time patterns of their speech with those of the persons with whom they interact. Each of twelve autistic youths participated in two interactions, one with an experimenter and one with his or her parent. In addition, each parent engaged in a conversation with the experimenter. The results indicate that: (a) compared with those interactions involving the parents and experimenter, those involving the youths and parents exhibited longer switching pauses whereas those involving the youths and experimenter exhibited longer switching pauses and pauses; and (b) although the parents and experimenter achieved temporal synchrony in their interactions, there was no evidence that the youths achieved it with either the experimenter or their parents.