TY - JOUR
T1 - Infants' preference for touch stimulation in face-to-face interactions
AU - Peláez-Nogueras, Martha
AU - Gewirtz, Jacob L.
AU - Field, Tiffany
AU - Cigales, Maricel
AU - Malphurs, Julie
AU - Clasky, Sara
AU - Sanchez, Aida
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by an NIMH Research Scientist Award no. MHO0331 and NIMH Basic Research Grant no. MH46586 awarded to Dr. Tiffany Field. Results from this research were reported at the 1995 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. We thank Angie Gonzalez for data coding, Peter Nogueras for assisting with figures, and Dr. Ziarat Hossain for assisting with statistical analyses.
PY - 1996/4
Y1 - 1996/4
N2 - Infant preference for social stimulation that included touch during a face-to-face situation with an adult was investigated. Ten 1.5- to 3.5-month-old infants (M = 2.6, SD = .6) participated in a within-subjects repeated-measures design. Two treatment conditions were compared in an alternated, counterbalanced order with each infant. Under the touch treatment, the infant eye-contact responses were followed by continuous contingent adult smiling, cooing, and rubbing of the legs and feet. Under the no-touch treatment, the infant eye-contact responses were followed by contingent adult smiling and cooing, but not by touching. The results showed that, during the touch condition, infants emitted more eye contact and more smiles and vocalizations, and they spent less time crying and protesting compared with the no-touch condition. The results demonstrated that a social stimulus compound that included touching the infants functioned as a more effective reinforcer for infant eye-contact behavior than a stimulus compound that did not include touch.
AB - Infant preference for social stimulation that included touch during a face-to-face situation with an adult was investigated. Ten 1.5- to 3.5-month-old infants (M = 2.6, SD = .6) participated in a within-subjects repeated-measures design. Two treatment conditions were compared in an alternated, counterbalanced order with each infant. Under the touch treatment, the infant eye-contact responses were followed by continuous contingent adult smiling, cooing, and rubbing of the legs and feet. Under the no-touch treatment, the infant eye-contact responses were followed by contingent adult smiling and cooing, but not by touching. The results showed that, during the touch condition, infants emitted more eye contact and more smiles and vocalizations, and they spent less time crying and protesting compared with the no-touch condition. The results demonstrated that a social stimulus compound that included touching the infants functioned as a more effective reinforcer for infant eye-contact behavior than a stimulus compound that did not include touch.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0193-3973(96)90025-8
DO - 10.1016/S0193-3973(96)90025-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:13544253122
VL - 17
SP - 199
EP - 213
JO - Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
JF - Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
SN - 0193-3973
IS - 2
ER -