AUTHOR=Kokkinaki Theano , Vasdekis Vassilis G. S. 

TITLE=Beyond the Words: Comparing Interpersonal Engagement Between Maternal and Paternal Infant-Directed Speech Acts

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2020

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.523551

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2020.523551

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=The present study investigates the way infants express their emotions in relation to parental feelings between maternal and paternal questions and direct requests. Τherefore, we compared interpersonal engagement accompanying parental questions and direct requests between infant-mother and infant-father interactions. We video-recorded spontaneous communication between eleven infant-mother and eleven infant-father dyads – from the 2nd to the 6th month - in their home. The main results of this study are summarized as follows: a) there are similarities in the way preverbal infants use their affections in spontaneous interactions with their mothers and fathers to express signs of sensitivity in sharing knowledge through questions and direct requests; and b) the developmental trajectories of face-to-face emotional coordination in the course of parental questions are descending in a similar way with both parents across the age range of this study. Regarding the developmental trajectories of emotional non-coordination, there is evidence of a linear trend on age different between parents’ gender with fathers showing a steepest slope on age. The results are discussed in relation to the theory of intersubjectivity.