Poster #87 - Caregiver Responsiveness During Infancy Predicts Early Social Cognition and Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

Mother-infant interactions have been argued to serve as the “cradle” of social cognition (Fonagy et al., 2007; Rochat & Striano, 1999). Specifically, contingently responsive exchanges between infants and caregivers may provide a rich context for social-cognitive development, including (a) learning about others’ actions and mental states, and (b) learning about others as social partners with whom to share attention and experience. Despite robust literatures on the development of social cognition and the role of caregivers in infant development, relatively little is known about how caregivers support the development of social cognition during infancy. Thus, the goal of the current study was to examine how individual differences in the quality of caregiver behavior predict variability in infants’ social cognition in the first year of life.

Using a sample of 203 8-12-month-old infants (M = 9.30, SD = .99) and their caregivers, we examined whether caregiver responsiveness during play was associated with infants’ concurrent intention understanding and joint attention. Moreover, using a subset of 111 infants who completed an additional lab visit at 6-7 months (M = 6.86, SD = .31), we examined whether early caregiver responsiveness predicted later social cognition. Caregiver responsiveness was coded microanalytically from 8 minutes of free play during each lab visit. Scores represent the relative proportion of caregiver behaviors that maintain (rather than redirect) infants’ focus of attention. At 6-7 months, infants’ tendency to engage in triadic interactions with objects and social partners was assessed through a semi-structured play session with an experimenter. Infant social cognition was also assessed at 8-12 months via measures of responding to joint attention (RJA; gaze- and point-following; Carpenter et al., 1998), initiating joint attention (IJA; using gestures and eye gaze to initiate joint attention with an experimenter; Mundy et al., 2003), and intentional action processing (making anticipatory looks to the goal of an agent’s reaching action in an eye-tracking task; Brandone et al., 2019).

Results revealed considerable variability in caregiver behavior that predicted infants’ social-cognitive abilities. Specifically, in concurrent analyses at 8-12 months, caregiver responsiveness predicted infants’ intentional action processing and use of IJA gestures (but not their RJA performance) after controlling for infant age (Table 1). Thus, infants whose parents were more responsive during free play showed better intentional action understanding and produced more attempts to initiate joint attention with a social partner. In the longitudinal analyses, we found no evidence of direct effects of caregiver responsiveness at 6-7 months on infant social cognition at 8-12 months. However, early caregiver responsiveness predicted later infant social cognition (intentional action processing, IJA, RJA) indirectly through its association with infants’ tendency to engage in triadic engagement at 6-7 months (Table 2).

Overall, these results suggest that responsive caregiver behaviors that follow infants’ focus of attention may lay the foundation for infants’ ability to understand others’ actions and engage in joint attention. These findings lend support to the broader hypothesis that early social cognition is built within the context of social interactions, with infants’ caregivers likely serving as influential social partners.

Author

• Amanda C Brandone, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author