Infancy最新文献

There are theoretical debates about the definition of joint attention, and empirical debates about when it emerges in development. Here we addressed both debates by investigating the emergence of infants' communicative joint attention bids: looks to their partner's face, accompanied by communicative facial expressions and/or vocalizations, to attempt to initiate joint attention to a referent. We tested 25 infants monthly, longitudinally, between 6 and 10 months using both novel joint attention elicitation tests and free play observations. Even when using a conservative definition of joint attention involving communication, results indicated that a substantial percentage of infants (44%) had already begun to produce joint attention bids by 6 months, with the vast majority (92%) having done so before 9 months. Joint attention bids emerged gradually, with increasing consistency, and were seen earlier in the novel elicitation tests than in free play, suggesting that previous work focusing on free play might have underestimated infants' joint attention. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of joint attention and communication.

Seeing adults use cellphones is a common daily experience for infants, yet little is known about how infants think about others’ cellphone use. Do infants recognize that phone usage can affect the user’s behavior? Here we asked whether infants expect a person’s task performance to be impaired by phone use. Twenty-month-old infants watched adults building block towers. One adult did this while also using a phone, either looking at the screen and scrolling (Experiment 1; N = 24) or simply talking (Experiment 2; N = 24). Across both experiments, infants looked longer when the person who had been using the phone built a taller tower than the person who had not been using the phone, compared to the reverse. This suggests that infants expected phone usage to negatively impact performance. Thus, early in development, children recognize that cell phone use can affect people's goal-directed actions; this may be one example of a broader understanding of the impact of multitasking on performance.

Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Kachergis, G., Masek, L. R., Gonzalez, S. L., Soska, K. C., Herzberg, O., Xu, M., Adolph, K. E., Gilmore, R. O., Bornstein, M. H., Casasola, M., Fausey, C. M., Frank, M. C., Goldin-Meadow, S., Gros-Louis, J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Iverson, J., Lew-Williams, C., MacWhinney, B., … Yurovsky, D. (2024). Comparing apples to manzanas and oranges to naranjas: A new measure of English-Spanish vocabulary for dual language learners. Infancy, 29(3), 302–326. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12571.

In the above referenced article, author Laura L. Namy's name should have appeared without an institutional affiliation.

Child inhibited temperament is influenced by parenting behaviors, and vice versa. Fathers remain underrepresented in studies examining relations between parenting and temperament. The current study focused on fathers, using a three-point longitudinal design. Father-child dyads (n = 116; 56.9% Male; 88.7% White) participated in laboratory assessments at child ages 1, 2, and 3 years. Children participated in observational tasks designed to measure inhibited temperament, and fathers self-reported parenting behaviors and rated their child's temperament. Path models testing concurrent and longitudinal relations revealed that paternal nurturance, restrictiveness, and encouragement of independence were associated with observed inhibited temperament in infancy, but not with father-rated inhibited temperament. Early observed child inhibited temperament at age 1 year predicted greater levels of paternal encouragement of independence at age 2 years. Findings demonstrated evidence for both father-directed and child-directed effects, suggesting fathers and children influence each other's behavior over time. Overall, this study supports continued focus on fathers' parenting and provides insight into the nuanced impact of fathering on child temperament development.

Parents use music, especially singing, to interact with their young children, supporting parent-child bonding and social communication. Little is known about the parental attributes that support musical interactions with their infants. In this exploratory study, we analyzed self-report data from 43 caregiver/infant dyads at up to four time points (9, 12, 15, and 18 months) to assess parent social motivation and musical training as predictors of the home music environment overall, parental singing, and parental beliefs in the benefits of music. We also investigated the home music environment as a predictor of language development longitudinally. Parent social motivation was a stronger predictor of the home music environment than musical training. Parents' social motivation was positively related to parental singing, beliefs, and overall music environment, while musical training was only related to their beliefs. Furthermore, parent singing and overall home music, but not parental beliefs, were associated with infants' vocabulary comprehension, production, and gestures. Results highlight that music engagement in early childhood is fundamentally a social experience and emphasize the importance of parents' active participation (vs. only their beliefs) in musical experiences with their infant. The social nature of music experiences in infancy may contribute to relationships between the home music environment and child language development.

Infants are highly sensitive to social stimuli from early on in ontogeny. Social cues, including others' gaze, not only capture and guide infants' attention, but also modulate the efficiency in which the infant (brain) encodes and recognizes information. Over the last two decades, the novelty preference based object-processing paradigm has been instrumental in investigating this phenomenon experimentally. This paper offers a comprehensive review and critical evaluation of methodological aspects and empirical findings from previous research using this paradigm to study the influence of (non-)social cues on infants' object processing. We highlight the critical role of methodological details and discuss influential factors such as eye contact, infants' object-directed attention, naturalistic environments, and potential neural correlates associated with enhanced object encoding. A comprehensive review table summarizes key methodological details from previous studies to assist researchers in making informed decisions when designing future studies. We conclude that the object-processing paradigm has proven to be an effective method with high potential for future research disentangling the influence of fine-grained factors on infants' object memory.

In late infancy and early toddlerhood, joint attention ability is widely recognized as a crucial foundation for children's vocabulary development, though the exact nature of its contribution remains debated. This study investigates associations between joint attention and subsequent vocabulary development, as well as the possible moderating role of supportive parental behaviors. Seventy children and their families participated in this longitudinal study, which began when the children were 10 months of age. Parents completed the Swedish Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) at four age points (10, 12, 18, and 24 months) to assess receptive and expressive vocabulary growth. Children participated in lab-based assessment of joint attention abilities at 10, 12, and 18 months. Additionally, at 10 and 12 months, parent-child dyads participated in two semi-structured lab assessments to evaluate the quality of parental supportive behaviors during interactions with their child. Primary analysis showed no significant effects of joint attention on subsequent receptive and expressive vocabulary. However, a significant interaction was found between a child's ability to respond to joint attention cues and parental supportive behaviors on receptive vocabulary. These findings indicate that parental supportive behaviors play a crucial role in promoting the development of children's receptive vocabulary.

Emerging evidence suggests smartphone use has adverse effects on mother-infant relationships. However, while research suggests that maternal responsiveness is reduced when using a smartphone, little research has been undertaken with infants. This study used cross-sectional data to explore associations between infant social-emotional development, maternal mental health outcomes, smartphone use, and mother-infant responsiveness. We recruited 450 mothers with infants aged 3–9 months, in the UK. Data were collected between October 2021 and April 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Validated self-report scales measured predictor variables and an outcome variable of mother-infant responsiveness. Hierarchical linear multiple regression identified a final model (R² = 0.385, F (3,432) = 17.33, p < 0.001), with four significant predictors for mother-infant responsiveness: infant social-emotional development, birth parity, perceived social support in the form of appraisal, and likelihood of maternal smartphone use when the infant may be perceived as passive. These results suggest that within this sample, suboptimal infant social-emotional development, additional children in the family, lack of appraisal support for mothers, as well as maternal smartphone use during critical periods of parenting all demonstrate a negative association with mother-infant responsiveness. The results have implications for planning early support for mothers in the first months of their infant's life.