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?

| 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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