A systems view of mother-infant face-to-face communication.

Principles of a dynamic, dyadic systems view of mother-infant face-to-face communication, which considers self- and interactive processes in relation to one another, were tested. The process of interaction across time in a large low-risk community sample at infant age 4 months was examined. Split-screen videotape was coded on a 1-s time base for communication modalities of attention, affect, orientation, touch, and composite facial-visual engagement. Time-series approaches generated self- and interactive contingency estimates in each modality. Evidence supporting the following principles was obtained: (a) Significant moment-to-moment predictability within each partner (self-contingency) and between the partners (interactive contingency) characterizes mother-infant communication. (b) Interactive contingency is organized by a bidirectional, but asymmetrical, process: Maternal contingent coordination with infant is higher than infant contingent coordination with mother. (c) Self-contingency organizes communication to a far greater extent than interactive contingency. (d) Self- and interactive contingency processes are not separate; each affects the other in communication modalities of facial affect, facial-visual engagement, and orientation. Each person's self-organization exists in a dynamic, homoeostatic (negative feedback) balance with the degree to which the person coordinates with the partner. For example, those individuals who are less facially stable are likely to coordinate more strongly with the partner's facial affect and vice versa. Our findings support the concept that the dyad is a fundamental unit of analysis in the investigation of early interaction. Moreover, an individual's self-contingency is influenced by the way the individual coordinates with the partner. Our results imply that it is not appropriate to conceptualize interactive processes without simultaneously accounting for dynamically interrelated self-organizing processes.

On the Origins of Disorganized Attachment and Internal Working Models: Paper II. An Empirical Microanalysis of 4-Month Mother-Infant Interaction.

A microanalysis of 4-month mother-infant face-to-face communication predicted 12-month infant disorganized (vs. secure) attachment outcomes in an urban community sample. We documented a dyadic systems view of the roles of both partners, the roles of both self- and interactive contingency, and the importance of attention, orientation and touch, and as well as facial and vocal affect, in the co-construction of attachment disorganization. The analysis of different communication modalities identified striking intrapersonal and interpersonal intermodal discordance or conflict, in the context of intensely distressed infants, as the central feature of future disorganized dyads at 4 months. Lowered maternal contingent coordination, and failures of maternal affective correspondence, constituted maternal emotional withdrawal from distressed infants. This maternal withdrawal compromises infant interactive agency and emotional coherence. We characterize of the nature of emerging internal working models of future disorganized infants as follows: Future disorganized infants represent states of not being sensed and known by their mothers, particularly in moments of distress; they represent confusion about both their own and their mothers' basic emotional organization, and about their mothers' response to their distress. This internal working model sets a trajectory in development which may disturb the fundamental integration of the person. The remarkable specificity of our findings has the potential to lead to more finely-focused clinical interventions.

MATERNAL ANXIETY SYMPTOMS AND MOTHER-INFANT SELF- AND INTERACTIVE CONTINGENCY.

Associations of maternal self-report anxiety-related symptoms with mother-infant 4-month face-to-face play were investigated in 119 pairs. Attention, affect, spatial orientation, and touch were coded from split-screen videotape on a 1-s time base. Self- and interactive contingency were assessed by time-series methods. Because anxiety symptoms signal emotional dysregulation, we expected to find atypical patterns of mother-infant interactive contingencies, and of degree of stability/lability within an individual's own rhythms of behavior (self-contingencies). Consistent with our optimum midrange model, maternal anxiety-related symptoms biased the interaction toward interactive contingencies that were both heightened (vigilant) in some modalities and lowered (withdrawn) in others; both may be efforts to adapt to stress. Infant self-contingency was lowered ("destabilized") with maternal anxiety symptoms; however, maternal self-contingency was both lowered in some modalities and heightened (overly stable) in others. Interactive contingency patterns were characterized by intermodal discrepancies, confusing forms of communication. For example, mothers vigilantly monitored infants visually, but withdrew from contingently coordinating with infants emotionally, as if mothers were "looking through" them. This picture fits descriptions of mothers with anxiety symptoms as overaroused/fearful, leading to vigilance, but dealing with their fear through emotional distancing. Infants heightened facial affect coordination (vigilance), but dampened vocal affect coordination (withdrawal), with mother's face-a pattern of conflict. The maternal and infant patterns together generated a mutual ambivalence.