Singing in tune - being in tune: Relationship between maternal playful singing and interpersonal synchrony

• In Event: The influence of maternal communication on infants’ biobehavioral state

Abstract

Interpersonal synchrony has provided a framework for studying the quality of early interactions between infants and their caregivers. Although even neonates synchronize their behaviours with those of adults (Condon & Sander, 1974), it remains largely unclear how it is accomplished in early social exchanges. Recent arguments suggest that individual entrainment to external perceivable rhythms may play a vital role in the establishment of interpersonal synchrony (Markova et al., 2019). In early caregiver-child interactions, infant-directed (ID) singing may be particularly relevant because caregivers intuitively use it to coordinate actions with their infants (Provasi et al., 2014). Consequently, the goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between maternal playful ID singing and interpersonal synchrony in early mother-infant interactions.

Overall, 56 mothers and their 4-month-old infants were observed during natural interactions for 10 min. From these interactions, we coded the occurrence of singing and rhyming social game routines (Markova, 2018), as well as maternal and infant gazes (i.e., gazes at infant/mother, gazes away) and facial expressions (i.e., positive, negative; for similar coding see e.g., Markova & Legerstee, 2006). Consistent with previous research (e.g., Feldman et al., 2011), two forms of synchrony were then computed: gaze synchrony - the proportion of time mother and infant looked at each other; and affect synchrony - the proportion of time mother and infant matched their positive affect displays.

Mothers engaged significantly more often in rhyming than in singing games, χ² = 9.78, p = .002, but their relative durations did not differ significantly (p = .12) and they were not correlated (p = .55). Zero-inflated Poisson regression for singing games revealed a significant fixed effect of gaze synchrony, z = 2.03, p = .04, as well as affect synchrony, z = 4.69, p < .001, showing that longer duration of singing games was related to higher gaze and affect synchrony (see Figure 1). The regression model for rhyming games revealed a significant effect of gaze synchrony, z = 3.88, p < .001, indicating that longer duration of rhyming games was also related to higher gaze synchrony. In contrast, there was also a fixed effect of affect synchrony, z = -2.86, p = .004, showing that longer duration of rhyming games were related to less affect synchrony (see Figure 2).

The present results suggest that rhythms are associated with interpersonal synchrony in infant-caregiver dyads, regardless of whether they are spoken or sung; but melodic rhythms seem to have an additional benefit in that they are more emotionally-salient and thus may attune both interactional partners to the affective content of their social exchanges. This corroborates with parental reports that the experience of singing to their infants increases their well-being and self-esteem (Fancourt & Perkins, 2017), and positively affects their sense of togetherness with their infants (e.g., Vlismas et al., 2013). Although indirectly, these findings indicate a possible link between ID singing and the quality of early mother-infant interactions.

Authors

• Gabriela Markova, University of Vienna
  Presenting Author

• Trinh Nguyen, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christina Schatz, University of Vienna
  Non-Presenting Author

• Martina de Eccher, University of Vienna
  Non-Presenting Author