Do 12-month-old infants maintain expectations of contingent or non-contingent responding based on prior experiences with unfamiliar and familiar adults?:

Stenberg, Gunilla

doi:10.1075/is.18044.ste

Article published In:

Interaction Studies
Vol. 22:1 (2021) ► pp.1–23

Do 12-month-old infants maintain expectations of contingent or non-contingent responding based on prior experiences with unfamiliar and familiar adults?

Gunilla Stenberg | Uppsala University

The current study examined whether infants use previous encounters for maintaining expectations for adults’ contingent responding. An unfamiliar adult responded contingently or non-contingently to infant signaling during an initial play situation and 10 min later presented an ambiguous toy while providing positive information (Experiment 1; forty-two 12-month-olds). The infants in the contingent group looked more at the adult during toy presentation and played more with the toy during the concluding free-play situation than the infants in the non-contingent group. When the parent had responded contingently or non-contingently to infant bids (Experiment 2; forty 12-month-olds), the infants in the contingent group tended to look more at the parent and tended to play more with the toy than did the infants in the non-contingent group. The results indicate that from just a brief exposure, infants form expectations about adults’ responsiveness and maintain these expectations of contingent/non-contingent responding from one situation to another.

Keywords: infants, contingency, social referencing, unfamiliar adult, familiar adult

Article outline

Experiment 1
Method
- Participants
- Situations and experimental conditions
- Setup and materials
- Design and procedure
  - Contingency situation
  - Ten-minute break
  - Toy exposure situation
  - Free-play situation
- Coding and reliability
- Manipulation checks
  - Contingency situation
  - Toy exposure situation
- Infant behaviors
  - Contingency situation
  - Toy exposure situation
  - Free-play situation
Results
- Toy exposure situation
- Free-play situation
Discussion
Experiment 2
Method
- Participants
- Situations and experimental conditions
- Setup and materials
- Design and procedure
  - Training phase
  - Free-play situation
- Coding and reliability
  - Contingency situation
  - Toy exposure situation
- Infant behaviors
  - Contingency situation
  - Toy exposure situation
  - Free-play situation
Results
- Toy exposure situation
- Free-play situation
Discussion
General discussion
Acknowledgements
References

Published online: 17 September 2021

https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18044.ste

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