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. 1996 Dec;67(6):3219-37.

Infants' responses to facial and vocal emotional signals in a social referencing paradigm

Affiliations
  • PMID: 9071778

Infants' responses to facial and vocal emotional signals in a social referencing paradigm

D L Mumme et al. Child Dev. 1996 Dec.

Abstract

The independent effects of facial and vocal emotional signals and of positive and negative signals on infant behavior were investigated in a novel toy social referencing paradigm. 90 12-month-old infants and their mothers were assigned to an expression condition (neutral, happy, or fear) nested within a modality condition (face-only or voice-only). Each infant participated in 3 trials: a baseline trial, an expression trial, and a final positive trial. We found that fearful vocal emotional signals, when presented without facial signals, were sufficient to elicit appropriate behavior regulation. Infants in the fear-voice condition looked at their mothers longer, showed less toy proximity, and tended to show more negative affect than infants in the neutral-voice condition. Happy vocal signals did not elicit differential responding. The infants' sex was a factor in the few effects that were found for infants' responses to facial emotional signals.

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