University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Eye Contact As An Indicator Of Infant Social Development

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Eye Contact As An Indicator Of Infant Social Development

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Content BYE CONTACT AS AN INDICATOR OP
INFANT SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
by
Susan Rosenzweig Broun
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Psychology)
January 1972
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University Microfilms
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I
I
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72-21,654
BROWN, Susan Rosenzweig, 1939-
EYE CONTACT AS AN INDICATOR OF INFANT
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT.
University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1972
Psychology, clinical
University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
T H E G R A D U A TE S C H O O L
U N IV E R S IT Y PARK
LOS A N G E LE S . C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, w ritten by
Susan _ Ro s en z_wejig _ Brown...........
under the direction of hsx.... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The G radu
ate School, in p a rtial fu lfillm en t of require
ments of the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y
.....................u Tei
D a te F f i f e r . n a r . x . . l 2 7 . 2 . . . .
PLEASE NOTE:
Some pages may have
indistinct print.
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University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company
TABLE OP CONTENTS
Page
LIST OP TABLES.................................Ill
Chapter
I. LITERATURE REVIEW: THE NATURE AND DEVELOP
MENT OF EYE CONTACT AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE
AS A VARIABLE OF SOCIAL ATTACHMENT .... 1
Social and Emotional Development In
Infancy. ................... 1
Significance of the Visual Mode. . . 4 . . 13
Maternal Behaviors and Social Emotional
Development................... 19
Characteristics Which Effect the Mother-
Infant Attachment and Eye Contact. ... 2k
Gaze Aversion: Some Descriptive Data. . . 35
II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM. .... 45
Recapitulation of the Theoretical
Background................... 45
Experimental Hypotheses.......... 47
Materials and Methods............ 47
III. RESULTS.............................. 5k
Reliability................. 5k
Inter-Relationship Between the Three
Sets of Measurements.......... 55
IV. DISCUSSION.................. 61
Evaluation of Measures........... 62
Alternative Hypotheses ............... 66
Implications for Future Studies.... 68
V. SUMMARY.......................... 70
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................. 71
APPENDIX 1 .................................... 80
APPENDIX 2 .................................... 84
ii
LIST OP TABLES
Table
1.
Page
Mean and Ranges of Maternal Care and Infant
Activity ........................ 59
111
CHAPTER I
LITERATURE REVIEW: THE NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT
OP EYE CONTACT AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE AS A
VARIABLE OF SOCIAL ATTACHMENT
The general phenomenon of socialization or the
development of primary relationships is the way the young
Infant becomes attached to other humans. The general evi
dence indicates that such relationships involve mutual
adaptation— the behavior of each is affected by the be
havior of the other. Two important questions will be
treated. The first Involves the specification of stimulus-
response properties which make up social relationships,
and the second is timing and the question of a critical
period.
Infancy is generally considered the formative period
of greatest concern for the development of personality,
ego strength, or social behaviors, depending on one*s
theoretical system. Bowlby (1958)* in his significant
paper on the nature of the mother-ohild relationship.
1
reviews the major theories and rejects both the psycho*
analytic and learning theory position in favor of an
ethologleal construct of this relationship. Both learning
and psychoanalytic theorists maintain that the infant's
emotional dependence on his mother can be understood from
the secondary reinforcement of the satisfaction of basic
physiological needs such as hunger, thirst, and pain. The
Infant's helplessness puts him in a dependent position
necessitating another, i.e. mother, to care for him. This
caretaking becomes associated with drive reduction, and
the mother eventually acquires reward value on her own.
Consequently, dependence generalizes, so that emotional
dependence is considered a derived drive.
Two slgnifleant papers have cast doubt on the
secondary drive theory of social development. One is
Harlow's (1961) research on the Infant-mother relationship
in monkeys, and the other is Bowlby's (1958) paper which
developed the ethologleal position.
Harlow's (1961) research into the effect of mother
substitutes on the development of social patterns in
monkeys is a serious challenge to the previous all-
important role attributed to the feeding experience.
Along with Ainsworth's (19&3) reports, and Schaffer and
Emerson's (19<&) observations, he too concluded that the
satisfaction of physical needs does not appear to be a
necessary pre-condition to the development of attachments.
The development of social attachment seems to occur inde
pendent of the experiences in the physical care situation.
Bowlby (1958)* after reviewing the psychoanalytic
and learning theory formulations, attacks the secondary
drive theory of social development and chooses an etho-
logloal position to describe the growth of the infant*s
first relationship. He enumerates five unique Infant
behaviors as Innate releasers of maternal behavior.
These inborn behavior patterns include following, cling
ing, sucking, smiling, and orylng. Bowlby postulates that
these component instinctual responses are at first rela
tively independent of each other. They mature at dif
ferent times during the first year and develop at dif
ferent rates. They function to establish an Interaction
between mother and child.
Bowlby distinguishes sucking, clinging, and follow
ing from crying and smiling. In the former group, the
baby is the active agent, while in the latter two the be
havior serves to aotivate some maternal behavior. To
emphasize the change in theoretioal direction, Bowlby
substituted the term social attachment for emotional de
pendence.
Since then, a number of investigators (Emerson and
Schaffer, 196k; Hobson, 1967; Ainsworth, 1963; Caldwell,
* 1 -
196*0 have adopted this term, Emerson and Sohaffer (1964-)
elaborated some operational criterion for attachment.
They Interpreted the attachment function as the tendency
of the young to seek the proximity of certain other members
of the species. One advantage of their operational defini
tion of attachment is the use which may then be made of
proximity seeking and proximity avoidance. Attachments are
made only to specific individuals, while others are re
sponded to with fear. Freedman*s (1961) work on fear of
strangers indicates that proximity avoidance is related to
proximity seeking. Gewirtz»s { 1963) three groups of in
fants were divided into home, day care, and institution
alized infants. Those with the most intense and immediate
satisfaction of proximity seeking, the home care group,
responded during the 8-to-10 month period with the greatest
amount of proximity avoidance, or fear of strangers.
Schaffer and Emerson (196**) did a longitudinal
follow-up study in which they investigated 60 infants at
four-week intervals, from the early weeks up to the end
of the first year, and then again at 18 months of age.
They operationally defined attachment as the behavior of
the infant-child when deprived of proximity to an adult.
They attempted to explore as parameters of social attach-
ment:
a. Age of onset.
5
b. Intensity.
e. Objects of attachments.
They were also interested in ferreting out variables
that are related to individual differences in social at
tachment, including a fear of strangers measure.
They found that the age of onset of specific at
tachments is generally in the third quarter of the first
year, but this is preceded by a period of indiscriminate
attachment behavior* In regard to Intensity they found
attachment to specific individuals most Intense in the
first month of onset, followed by fluctuations which make
predictions difficult. Also, given a latitude of indi
vidual differences, that a multiplicity of others are
objects of attachment.
Emerson and Schaffer's (196*0 work does not present
a picture of a socially passive neonate who sleeps when
free from pain and hunger. Rather, from the beginning
weeks, the infant takes an active part in seeking inter
action with his social environment, and they comment that
"it is he rather than the adults around him who is so
often found to take the initiative in establishing and
maintaining contact." Despite the lack of locomotion, the
infant has other means to signal his requirements in the
early months, such as crying, and following. In the ab
sence of social stimulation the infant show, and often
6
forcefully, his unrest and dissatisfaction, and his homeo
static balance seems only to be restored when his wishes
are interpreted and met by the environment.
Such a description brings to mind a need state
within the organism, which is lasting and evoked by
speolflc individual or sets of stimuli. Emerson and
Schaffer (196*0 postulate an attachment need as the moti
vation for proximity seeking. Certainly the studies of
White and Castle (196*0 and Yarrow (1961), which conclude
that early tactile stimulation appears necessary for
normal human development, would lend credence to such a
need.
On a behavioral level, attachment or proximity
seeking can be expressed in many ways. Ainsworth ( 1963)
has identified a large number of behaviors which may be
observed and the developmental periods in which they occur
during the first year. The different behaviors available
for expression of attachment also raise the question of
Inherent factors, in that the Intercorrelations indicate
some relation between them. The faotor common to various
behavioral expressions of attachment could be referred to
as a general level of responsiveness or sensitivity in
social situations. Some Infants do appear to be placid,
uninvolved and relatively unaffected in sooial situations.
Others, like some of those in Emerson and Schaffer*s
7
sample* not only reacted violently to the loss of their
principal object of attachment, but shorn a similar re
action to a wide range of other familiar individuals, and
are more likely to have an Intense fear of strangers
during the third quarter of the first year. Most in
vestigators of early social development postulate some
underlying syndrome or social sensitivity factor.
An interesting adjunct of this finding was explored
by Schaffer and Emerson. Although their data supports the
notion of an Intrinsic faotor, they report that stability
and consistency in expression is not a correlary. Apart
from the variance which results from environmental inter
action, they feel that fluctuations occur in the absence
of any obvious change in external conditions and Indicate
that consistency is not a necessary feature of social
attachment, and the possibility of Inherent Instability
must be kept in mind.
This indication that the form and nature of social
relationships change over time leads to a significant
question. Is there a critical period in the development
of the social responsiveness of the human being?
Critical Periods
The experimentation on imprinting has revealed that
certain types of events which occur in brief and fixed
periods of time can have long-range effects on the later
8
social responsiveness of the individual. Although many
of the variables In the imprinting phenomenon need better
operational definitions, their existence at various phy-
letie levels suggest its relevance for Issues in child
development and preventive mental health.
There is both theoretical and experimental support
for a critical periods hypothesis. Similarities between
phenomena of early human social development and imprinting
have been elaborated by Scott (1967) and Ambrose (1963).
A parallel can be seen between the development of the in
fant's responsiveness to its mother and types of change are
reported in imprinting studies on young birds (Ambrose,
1961), and dogs (Soott, 1958). Phenomena associated with
imprinting are also found at the human level.
Ambrose (1961) describes four similarities to the
development of attachment behavior in birds. The first
is the relation between smiling and following. Gray
(1958) proposes that the smiling response in human infants
is the motor equivalent of the following response in
animals below the higher primates. He clarifies their
functional similarities by pointing out that in man, the
capacity for locomotion develops later than in most other
animals. While other animals are able to move and keep
in close contact with the parent, during the time when
learning the class of the species is taking place, human
9
infants cannot do so. Hot can they maintain oontaot by
clinging, as primates do. Either the initiative is left
entirely to the human mother* or the Infant has a means of
facilitating it as well.
Crying enables the Infant to attract its mother
from a distance. Ambrose ( 1961) suggests that the smiling
response takes over where crying leaves off. He points
to three effoots of an Infant's smiling and how it fosters
lnoreased proximity between Infant and mother, and in*
creased loving behavior.
A second similarity is that both seem to develop
without any conventional reward such as food. Holtz (i 960)
suggested that anxiety reduction is the reward operating
in the following response. Braokblll (1958) showed that
response strength can be increased by a combination of
smiling back at the Infant, picking him up, and holding
him.
A third similarity between the two is the type of
stimuli that releases smiling and following, specifically
the stimulus properties of the parents. Following is
usually initially released by the first moving object
seen. This release oocurs even in animals Isolated from
birth, provided isolation does not occur for too long. It
is not dependent on previous social experience. Following
is initially released by stimuli that are consistently
10
fixated, visually or audltorlally, and thus become most
familiar. The Initial releasing stimulus must be avail
able over a period of time.
Smiling comes to be released by other than Internal
stimuli. These external releasers can be auditory or
tactile stimuli, but their Impact Is superceded by visual
stimuli whloh have the properties of figure and motion.
The eyes are the most potent, first flgural entity
which Is consistently perceived by the Infant. According
to Ahrens (195*0 the absolute stimulus which is the root
of social behavior Is the eye part (of a mask or observer*s
face). When the age of visual release occurs, the Infant
does not have the capacity for fixation of anything much
larger. Of all the facial features, the eye possesses
the greatest combination of those qualities which attract
infant fixation: figure, small enough to be perceived with
a minimum of multiple fixation, color, movement, and light
reflection. Ambrose suggests that the eyes of the mother
are the human equivalent of what In birds Is the "first
moving objeot seen."
The fourth similarity is the factor whioh deter
mines the limits of this rather brief period. Commence
ment of species learning seems to be conditional to the
ability to fixate. What causes the termination of the Im
printing period Is more vague. Imprinting is a process of
n
supraindividual learning, and it has been observed that
the later an animal is first exposed to a releasing
stimulus, the greater is the tendency to flee Instead of
follow. Hinde et al. (1956) has suggested the end of the
critical period may be due to the development of fleeing*
a response incompatible with following. He suggests that
the following response is limited to one phyletlo class
because the animal becomes most familiar with it by the
time the fleeing response develops. Following is in
hibited in animals reared in Isolation until the fear
response develops, but socially reared animals lose the
following response to strange objects earlier. Ambrose
( 1963) explains this as a result of the incompatibility
of following with the security of familiar others. If
they follow, they lose their companions.
Ambrose ( 1961) points out that in infants there are
individual differences in the time when they begin not
to respond socially to strangers. In his study, institu
tion infants began to discriminate strangers much later
than family Infants. He explains this discrimination of
strangers as associated with fear and curiosity caused
by the beginning discrimination of an unfamiliar face,
per se. He reports that many Infants overcome this (the
fear habituates) and smile more at strangers, though this
smiling may decline in strength through habituation to
12
the stranger.
Ambrose ( 1963) sets the time for Initial learning
of the human face at about the fifth week of life. When
the discrimination of strangers begins, at approximately
the twelfth week, we have a clearly defined measure of
such learning.
The smiling response of infants to the stimulus of
the human face appears at about 5 weeks of age. Yarrow
(196*0 reports that by one month of age, about 65 per cent
of babies in his sample could differentiate between social
and nonsocial stimuli, which can be considered a first
step in the appearance of social awareness. Spitz and
Wolf (19* 1 - 6 ) found that by three-to-five months, nearly
100 per cent of their babies would smile at an adult face.
Soott (196*0' interprets the relevant data to con
clude that:
... the ages up to and Including five months are
the ones in Which it is extremely easy to make
positive social contacts with a young baby and that
it becomes increasingly difficult, though not im
possible, to accomplish this after this time.
Prior to five or six weeks of age, it is doubtful
that the baby Is capable of developing any sort of
extensive associations, and thus a true social re
lationship, with anyone.
All of the data, when oomblned to include orylng and
smiling responses, oapaolty for conditioning visual
stimuli and the development of EBG, indicate the period
between five or six weeks and five or six months is the
period of primary socialization
13
Significance ofthe VlsualMode
579 Wft PftY9l9Pttg.flfc
Bowlby*8 position paper redirected and challenged
investigators in social development to look at the innate
or inherent behaviors of crying, smiling, following,
clinging, and sucking as innate-releaser mechanisms, and
exposed the dearth of descriptive data on the parameters
of attachment. Hobson*s (1967) paper on eye-to-eye con
tact in the maternal Infant dyad is an important contribu
tion to this area. He added another variable, eye-to-eye
contact, to the list of innate releasers that mediate an
important part of non-verbal communication between people.
This interaction has been studied in adult social
interaction (Exline, 1963: Exline and Winters, 1965$
Argyle and Dean, 1965) and has been well studied by
ethologists Interested in animals (Scott, 1964t Ambrose,
196^1 Tinbergen, 1935) but has received very little notice
from child development researchers.
Robson, in his first such article ( 1967) explored
the development of eye contact during the first six months
for the purpose of relating it to the development of at
tachment between mother and infant, and to enumerate some
variables needing future experimental verification.
3>
Robson ( 1967) makes the point that the human mother is
subjeoted to a long and very trying period of caring for
her Infant during which her baby has a very limited reper
toire of responses with which to sustain her. The help
lessness. crying, elimination behavior and physical ap
pearance of the neonate frequently elicit aversive re
actions. He Interprets eye-to-eye contact, and the social
smiling it often releases, in the early months, as be
haviors which have the potential to foster positive
maternal feelings.
Rosenblatt ( 1966), in summarizing the development
of maternal attachment in a number of animal species,
indicates that even in species where Infancy is prolonged,
non-human mothers seem to require less responsiveness from
their offspring them humans. Eye-to-eye contact and pre
cursors of the human smiling response (i.e. lip retrac
tion in dogs and cats and the grins and grimaces of
primates) play a small role in sub-human attachments. In
non-humans, these ties develop in a comparatively short
time span, and are terminated by active dlsoouragement of
the infant's behavior. In contrast, little social inter
action between humans is possible without eye-to-eye con
tact (Hutt and Ounstead, 1966). The lack of eye-to-eye
contact may be one of the sources of early maternal
anxiety. Other observational evidence to support its
15
significance for maternal attachment and social Inter
action is reported by Greenman (1963) and Wolff (I 963).
Wolff notes that during the fourth week of life " . • . the
baby seems to focus on the observers* eyes as If there were
true eye-to-eye oontact • . . and ... It appears to be
specifically the contact between eyes that is effective
In evoking a smile." Greenman (1963) reports that three
of the mothers In his study, who had spent little time
playing with their Infants before the fourth week, sud
denly began doing so within two or three days of the In
fant's first recorded eye-to-eye contact, yet the mothers
reported no explanation of why this was so. Hobson (196?)
reports on a longitudinal on-going study Involving 5^
primlparous mothers; most of these women describe Initial
feelings of strangeness, and the most frequent response to
when the strangeness ceased involves the baby "looking."
A small number reported that eye-to-eye contact, specifi
cally. released their strong positive feelings. Other
evidence for it includes the Intense discomfort experi
enced In encounters with the blind. Freedman ( 196^) com
ments that visual impairment Interferes with the develop
ment of certain sooial responses. As evidence, he points
to the early appearance of fleeting social smiles in
blind Infants, with a lack of Interprolonged social
smiling.
16
The significance of eye contact as a social re*
leaser was evaluated in a study to test the prlmaoy of
face perceptions of three and four year old children
(Shapiro and Stine, 1965)* In their younger sample, less
than 46 months old • 89 per cent drew eyes and 22 per cent
drew mouths. In the older children's group, 99 per cent
drew eyes and 75 per cent mouths. Shapiro and Stine
( 1965) suggest that the earliest body representations are
taken from visual experience.
Shaffer and Emerson (1964a) observed that during
the first year of life, situations which Involve the
interruption of "visually maintained contact". are most
likely to provoke separation protest. Kagan et al. ( 1966)
found that four-month-old infants smiled more In propor
tion to the degree of facedness of the stimulus. Eye-to-
eye contact seems to be one of the most intense and bind
ing visual Interactions in the first year. The two-way
process of looking at, and being looked at, may be the
paradigm of the human relationship— reciprocal interaction.
General Significance of Bye Contact
IB
A number of studies have indicated that the visual
behavior between two people is related to the affective
nature of the interaction between those persons. Efran
(1968) and Ellsworth and Carlsmlth ( 1968) found that more
17
eye-to-eye contact and positive verbal content led to more
positive evaluation of the other person than positive
content with less eye contact. Also, negative verbal
content and frequent eye oontaot produces negative evalua
tion. Thus, the amount of eye contact in a dyadic inter
action has a significant effect on a person’s reaction to
another. This effect depends on the quality of verbal
interaction, but the more eye contact the greater the
Impact, positive or negative, of the situation.
Exline and Winters ( 1965) found that subjects in
crease frequency of eye contact with an interviewer
evaluating them positively, and reduce eye contaot with a
negatively evaluating interviewer.
Argyle and Dean (1965) found that eye oontaot,
smiling, interaction distance and the Intimate nature of
the verbal content are part of a general intimacy dimen
sion, and as one variable becomes too intense for comfort,
another is adjusted until a comfortable equilibrium is
attained.
Mobbs (1968) showed that in a social situation, ex
troverts will engage in greater amounts of eye oontaot
than introverts. Kleck ( 1968) found eye contaot to have a
reliable congruence between the indicative and communica
tive functions of non-verbal behavior. Argyle and Dean
( 1965) also note that visual interaction, in combination
18
with faolal expression and gestures* provides Important
feedback Information. Cllhe (1967) and Gibson and Pick
(1963) found that aoouraoy of judgements for being looked
at Is quite high* and certainly higher than awareness of
other "lines of regard."
All of the preceding studies evaluated visual be
havior and awareness as the dependent variable measure of
affeotlve or interpersonal communication. The results
seem to Indicate that the latency direction and frequenoy
of a person's glances are greatly modified by the other
person's responses. Eye oontaot Increases and decreases
as a function of the other's affective responses, and
supports the Idea that visual behavior has a communicative
function. Ellsworth and Carlsmith ( 1968) showed that
something Is actually communicated by seeking out or
avoiding the gaze of another person. Kendon (196?)
pointed out that long* purposeful mutual gazes indicate
an Intensification of the relationship between persons.
The results of Efran ( 1968) and Ellsworth and
Carlsmlth (1968) mediate against the frequent assumption
that lack of eye contaot automatically Indicates a nega
tive or uninterested reaction. In both studies* negative
verbal communications* when coupled with more eye contact,
resulted In more negative evaluation of self* or situa
tion* or other, than negative evaluation with less eye
oontact.
19
However, these various studies do support the com
municative function of eye-to-eye contact• They raise
the question of the measuring of eye oontaot, particularly
in effectively negative situations.
Maternal Behaviors and Social
Emotional Development
Maternal oare is usually assumed to have the
greatest impact on the development of an infant. There
are numerous studies and ideas about maternal care and in
fant behavior. Careful assessments of maternal attitudes,
personality, and case history related to specific infant
behaviors abound in the literature. But behavioral
measures of maternal care are scarce. -It is relatively
easy to define the specific behaviors of an infant,
located in a crib and sleeping at least half the time.
But the actual operations that mothers perform in oaring
for an infant are multivariate and do not lend themselves
easily to the exact measures needed for statements of
association. Rheingold’s (i 960) significant work in
this area, using time samples in a naturalistic setting,
has been a fertile model for others. Her results showed
that infants raised at home received 4.5 times as much
care as institutional infants. The differences were in
amount, not in kinds of oaretaking.
20
MfflriLffg
Freedman (196*0, after studying the sooial develop
ment of blind Infants, oonoludes that the visual system
Is a primary faotor in 6he development of the human ex
perience. Some Important functions of this system include
the identification, organization and processing of the
many stimuli in the physical world that will become
psychologically meaningful to the individual. The as
similation of Interpersonal stimuli is particularly de
pendent in vision, i.e., gestures, facial expressions.
It is easy to determine if one is being observed
(Exllne, 1963). This awareness contributes to the inter
personal relationships. To be looked at is to be ac
knowledged, which is a prerequisite for social interchange
and the establishment of more permanent attachments.
The experience of mutual visual regard, eye-to-eye
contact, is one of the earliest means of sooial communi
cation for the mother-infant dyad. This interaction has
Important developmental consequences, for it is within the
oontext of early eye-to-eye contaot that smiling and
talking emerge. Moss and Bobson (1968) studied the
maternal Influences on social visual behavior. Positive
attitudes toward infants were assessed in primaparous
mothers during pregnancy. In subsequent home observa
tions, the frequenoy at one and three months of age with
21
whloh mother and Infant simultaneously looked at one
smother*s faoea mas recorded. At three and a half months,
most of the Infants mere shown a series of geometric and
social stimuli to which total fixation times were cal
culated. For female Infants, the pregnancy ratings, eye-
to-eye contact scores, and total fixation times to sooial
stimuli were all positively related. However, for males
the pregnancy ratings were slgnlfloantly associated only
with the one-month score.
Moss and Robson (1968) suggest several reasons for
this sex difference at three months. Possibly mothers are
less certain how to behave toward their sons and are
ambivalent. Since males are more Irritable (Moss, 196?)*
and more vulnerable to adversity (Serr and Ismajovlch,
1963), these factors might Interact with mothers* atti
tudes to attenuate maternal attitudes of ambivalence.
With girls, maternal attitudes were predictive of
maternal behavior toward the girls and were reflected In
the girls* sooial learning, as measured by their visual
behavior. This finding Is predictable from the results
of Kagan et al. ( 1966), who found that girls had shorter
fixation times for facial stimuli. They inferred from
this that girls are more developmentally advanced and
would habituate sooner to a stimulus. This also relates
to the general literature on sex differences, pointing to
the fact that males mature at a slower rate.
22
Contingent Material Behavior
Gewlrtz (1961) stresses that we must take account
of the olroumstanoes under whloh stimuli are made avail
able to Infants, as to whether they are funotlonal, and
lead to further learning. He points out that it is not
eye contact per se, but contaot that Is contingent upon a
baby'8 signals, whloh has value for attachment behavior.
Robson (1967) enumerates three aspects of Gewlrtz* theory
which are primary for quality oare. These are:
1. Mothers* responses to infants* needs must be
within a time period short enough for the In
fant to experience the contingency experience.
2. Mothers' responses must accurately meet the
Infants' needs.
3. The degree of animation and modulation of
facial expression must be sufficient to project
sufficient and differentiated effect.
Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found the rapidity with
which the mother responded to her infant's demands yielded
a positive and significant correlation with infant oholoe
of favored caretaker and attachment intensity.
No one has yet established the direction of ef
fects, that is to what extent maternal behaviors are in
fluenced by infant characteristics and vice versa. But
23
Greenmail. (1963) feels there Is sufficient evidence to
Indicate that If an eye-to-eye contact is not established,
or if its quality fosters disruption and distress, both
mother and Infant will experience varying degrees of
interference and distress in forming this primary human
relationship.
Robson (1967) reports on the observation of a
mother-infant interaction with a baby who persistently
avoided maternal eye contact. The mother, after vigorous
but unsuccessful attempts to catch her baby's eye, angrily
exclaimed: "Look at me," obviously provoked by being re
buffed. He also specifies maternal predisposition to
gaze aversion as a determining variable in the development
of mother-infant attachment, showing the two-way inter
action of the phenomenon.
The work of Moss and Robson (1968) referred to
earlier and Robson, Pederson and Moss ( 1969) also relates
maternal attitudes, as measured during pregnancy to the
development of visual activity and eye contact. Along
with Bucher's ( 1969) work indicating that a statistically
significant group of non-gazers (.001) came from the two
foster homes Independently labeled socially dysoommunl-
cating, they lend further evidenoe to the significance of
maternal characteristics and behaviors on infant sooial
behaviors•
Zk
Hobson, Pederson and Moss (1969) found that fre
quency of eye contact Is associated with later social be
haviors, though mainly for males. This study extended
their previous observations (Moss and Robson, 1968) on
maternal attitudes assessed during pregnancy and the fre
quency of mother-infant gazing at one and three months to
Include three measures of approach avoidance behavior.
For males, the frequency and latency of mother-infant
gazing correlated positively with gazing at strangers, and
both of these variables correlated positively with maternal
attitudes assessed during pregnancy.
Characteristics Which Effect the Mother-
Infant Attachment and Eve Contact
As many observers have pointed out, there are great
Individual differences which emerge from observations of
Infants (Chess and Thomas, et al.. 1963; Schaffer and
Emerson, 196*1; Wolf, 1963). There are some babies who
seem to make active and vigorous attempts to seek out eye-
to-eye contact with their mothers, and become totally
engaged when It Is achieved. Others make contact but are
easily distracted, while others seem to avoid their
mother*s eyes.
The strength of the Infant's tie to Its mother Is
affected both by his characteristics and those of the care-
taking environment, usually mother. Robson (1967)
25
enumerates four characteristics of the infant to include:
1. Alertness.
2. Sex differences.
3. Sensory modality preference.
i f . Predisposition to gaze aversion.
Aterlama
Concepts such as attentiveness, arousal level, and
orienting behavior in the Infant are often based on visual
functioning. "Alertness" is often used to characterize
the intensity of these behaviors. Usually this descrip
tion is based on visual activity such as how long the eyes
remain open, how soon the infant "sees," i.e. follow and
fixate, the duration of fixation and intensity of gaze.
Wolff (1965) has established that the amount of time
an infant spends in alert inactivity varies enormously
with individual Infants, but shows a steady increment over
the first month of life. Sex differences in visual at
tentiveness are frequently reported.
Sex Differences
One group of investigators (Kagan, 1965: Kagan and
Lewis, 1965: Lewis, Kagan and Kalafat, 1966* Kagan et al.,
1966) demonstrated that females show more attention and
more rapid habituation to human faces* thus, girls would
be likely to develop a differentiated percept of their
mother*s faoe earlier than boys.
26
Moss and Robson (1968) assessed attitudes toward
Infants In 5^ prlmlparous mothers during pregnancy. Home
observations of the mother-infant dyad were made at one
and three month points to record eye-to-eye contaot. At
three months the Infants were shown a series of geometric
and social stimuli and their responses measured by fixa
tion time. They found that positive attitudes during the
pregnancy correlated with greater fixation time for male
and female infants at one month, but this correlation did
not hold up for male infants at the three-month Interval.
They Interpreted this sex difference as evidence that
boys mature at a slower rate so their visual behavior
would not reflect their experience with the mother.
Robson (1967) suggests that a visually alert baby
would attract early, frequent, and possibly more reward
ing eye contact from the mother, and therefore a dif
ferentiated and stronger bond with her.
SenqgjEE., J W ,
Another Infant characteristic lilcely to influence
attachment is their sensory modality preference. Benjamen
(1959) classified babies as visual, auditory, or tactile
and kinesthetic In the sense that they, are predominantly
soothed through and explore with one or another of these
receptor systems. If such categorization Is valid, then
the visual responder should be more likely to establish a
27
stronger tie to his mother's face.
A current trend in the investigation of infant
social and emotional behavior is an attempt to make
speoific operational definitions of the stimulus and
situational determinants of such behavior. In studying
the development of attachment, both in humans and animals,
specific variables and their eliciting as well as rein
forcing effect in the infant-adult interaction are enumer
ated .
The visual mode acts as an ellcltor of responses as
well as a reinforcer in the interaction. Bowlby's (1958)
theoretical papers have had significant hueristlc value
for this area. Kagan's et al. (1966) work on facedness,
Rheingold's (1968) on distress mediated by mother, and
Robson's (1957) on eye contact are good examples of
greater stimulus specificity. Jones (1930) made one of
the earliest studies of infant facial smiling to a human
face. Kalla (1932) was the first to test the effect of
variations in facial schemata for eliciting smiles. Kaila
(1932) reported that Infants not only follow, but stare
at faces with great intensity. He referred to the im
portance of eye-to-eye contact during the development of
sooial smiling as a sign of sufficient stimulus Intensity.
Wolff (1963) reports that sooial smiling occurs only after
the infant has carefully inspected all the features of the
observer's face and eventually focuses on the eyes, and
28
then breaks into a smile. Lorlng (196?) cites a recent
Russian study by Klstjakoskaya ( 1965) describing the onset
of positive emotional expression in Infants. She reports
the first sign of positive expression occurs when the In
fant fixates on the face of an adult, who was moving
forward and backward. All three factors were regarded as
Important, but the relation between smiling and visual
fixation was emphasized. Visual fixation was Interpreted
as evidence of a "drive in the activity of the visual
analyzer," rather than a response to a faolal configura
tion.
Klstjakoskaya's Interpretation foouses on the need
state and directs us to the number of studies regarding
need for stimulation and then specifically the visual
preference studies.
Another variable to Influence eye contact In
maternal attachment Is the Infant*s predisposition to gaze
aversion. Robson (1967) explains this predisposition by
referring to the ethologioal data on the potency of the
"eye gestalt" as an evoker of gaze aversion or flight re
sponses in animals. Szekely (19 5*4- ) reviews the history of
these avoldanoe reactions along the evolutionary ladder
and constructs an enoompasslng theory of infantile anxiety.
According to Lorenz (1953). in the overwhelming majority
of animals, "empty gazing Is the normal state of affairs
. . • and . . . amongst themselves animals only look at
each other fixedly when they Intend to take drastic
measures or are afraid of each other . • • [hence] they
oonoelve of a prolonged fixed gaze as being something
hostile and threatening ..."
Peroeptual_Factors In Bye Contact
Part of the definition of both the stimulus and
response of this variable Is a clarification of the per
ceptual ability and sensory responslvlty of the infant.
At birth the Infant shows several very clear ocular re
sponses. He blinks when a light Is shown in his eyes,
and he shows both direct and consensual pupillary reac
tions to bright light. He also shows corneal and
vestibular responses. But these types of responses are
seen in Infants with severe central nervous system
deficits and thus do not Imply that vision is present.
In about 75 per cent of newborns, the opticoklnetic
response can be elicited. This Is done by moving a
striped pattern slowly aoross the infant's visual field.
Nystagmus Is a consequence of the momentary fixations and
refixations on the moving stripes. This response is the
test for visual activity In newborns. Another response
which Is more dependent on cortical integration is that
seen when the Infant fixes on and then follows a slowly
30
moving object across his line of vision* -Half of all new
borns show this response In the delivery room.
The question of the ability of the newborn to
perceive form has been experimentally studied by Fantz
(196lt 1963). Previous to his work* it was thought that
pattern vision and form perception were acquired through
an assoolatlonal process by means of brightness and color
sensations* But Fantz (19&3) showed that even In the
earliest weeks the young Infant can resolve and discrimi
nate patterns and other conf iguratlonal aspects and that
he spends a great deal of his time looking at these im
portant parts of his environment. His work also indicated
that infants have perceptual selectivity as well as per
ceptual capability* He was able to demonstrate longer
fixation time in the four-day-old newborn to the con
figuration of a faoe than to other patterns. In a later
study (1966), it was determined that the amount of time
spent In looking at various targets is very largely a
function of the stimulus properties of the target rather
than determined by previous exposure history or similarity
to familiar objects.
Neurophysiological data to support these behavioral
measures oomes from Hodge et al. ( 1969) who gathered new
born electroretlnograms and evoked BEG responses and found
responses to visual stimuli to be well differentiated.
31
Fitzgerald (1968) found that autonomlo pupillary reflex
activity during early Infancy was selectively responsive
to social and nonsoolal visual stimuli. Testing Infants
of one* two* and four months* he found that at all ages
there was a larger response to social stimuli* as measured
by change In pupil size.
Several theories of the Infant's attachment to
people around him have stressed the Importance of the
human face as a stimulus for the child (Bowlby* 1958;
Gewlrtz, 1961; Gray, 1958). Many studies of Infants*
responses to visual stimuli have used faces or repre-
sentatlon of faces as stimuli. Researoh on smiling
(Ambrose, 1961; Gray, 1958; Gewlrtz, 1965) has also used
the human face as a stimulus to evoke smiling. Spitz and
Wolf (19^6) found the faoe to be the most effective
stimulus for eliciting smiles. In evaluating 251 babies
of different racial and socio-economic backgrounds, they
found that a grimacing mouth is ohosen for fixation as
often as a front view of a smiling face. They suggest
that the movement factor effects the desirability-of the
grimace. They distinguished between the smile to the faoe
and the Innate motor pattern, anlage* which in the newborn
appears without environmental stimulation. They interpret
the smile at three months of age as a motor pattern that
is expressive of the emotional needs at a social level.
32
They suggested that smiling, and eye-to-eye contact, are
part of an evolutionary process. They point to the up
right posture of higher organisms whloh makes faoe-to-face
interaction possible, and to the development of the human
hand for eye-to-eye contact between mother and child, since
the mother can now hold up the child. Kagan and Lewis
( 1965) showed that Infants over 15 weeks fixate pictures
of faces longer than other stimuli.
Wilcox and Clayton (1968) tested the effect of dif
ferences in facial expression on fixation time, in a five-
month-old infant, but found no significant differences,
but a strong preference for moving over non-moving stimuli.
Ahrens (195**) also was unable to find differential smiling
to different facial expressions before the age of seven
months. But Watson ( 1966) did find differential smiling
to different orientations of a face at fourteen weeks.
The variability in these findings suggests a need for
greater clarification of the stimulus situation.
Perception. Cognition, and
MMaSsa&af c
Piaget (1936) has developed a detailed account of
how the human Infant gradually constructs his conceptual
world. He describes how the infant progresses from a
phase in which he is Influenced only by immediately present
stimuli, familiar and unfamiliar, to a phase where he
conceptualizes the world as one of permanent objects
33
existing In time and space and Interact with each other,
including himself, in the system. Piaget supposes there
is no differentiation between subject and object in the
Initial phase (as does Freud).
Although In the next phase the Infant responds to
objects In the external world, there Is still no reason to
suppose he Is organizing his impressions of them in terms
of permanently existing objects. He suggests that the
Infant is engaged with a procession of images, visual,
auditory, tactile and kinesthetio, each of which exists
only in the here and now, and belongs to nothing more
permanent (Piaget, 1936). It is a piecemeal world re
sponded to by a series of ad hoc responses. Piaget (1936)
concludes that it is not much before the age of nine
months that the infant constructs for himself a world of
permanent objects, and therefore that it is not until
after this stage that he is able to conceive of objects as
having human attributes.
Piaget suggests that it is not until as late as
nine months that the infant conceives of his mother as a
human being.
Bowlby (1958) postulates a phase which begins al
most Immediately after birth when the Infant responds in
oharacterlstio ways to certain stimulus patterns. Because
he is human, he is predisposed to be interested in warm.
34
moist things like lips and nipples, or eyes, to which he
responds in oharaoteristic ways.
Initially he peroelves different stimuli in dif
ferent phases whloh no doubt are without Integration; but
by the fifth or sixth month integration begins, which is
comparable to Piaget's notion of sensing the mother as a
whole human being by six to nine months of age.
The ethologist Helnroth (1911) pointed out that
species specific behavior patterns may be activated by
the perception of fairly simple visual or auditory gestalt
to which they are innately sensitive. What are the sign
stimuli or social releasers of the socialization response?
These sign stimuli are important not only in the activa
tion but also in the termination of a response. Termina
tion, sometimes can be traced to Internal feedback, i.e.
hetereooeptlve stimuli, or to environmental stimuli which
acts as a social suppressor.
Essentially Bowlby * s thesis is that there matures
in the early months of life of the human infant a complex
and nicely balanced set of instinctual social responses,
whose function is to ensure that he obtains parental oare
sufficient for survival.
Sas&Una . a M J ^ q . . . P 9 n f r a < r t
White and Castle (1964) studied the effects of
post-natal handling of human Infants on their visual ex-
35
ploratory behavior. They observed Institutionalized in
fants who typically would have been reared with limited
adult oontaot. The experimental group received small
amounts of extra handling during their first five weeks,
and subsequently showed slgnifloantly more visual Interest
than non-handled controls.
Gaze Avers Ion: Some Desorlut lve Data
Among the qualities that the human organism has in
common with other living organisms is the consequence of
perception for the regulation and adaption of behavior.
In humans and other higher organisms, motor behavior is
acoompanled by an excitatory process which we have labeled
emotions or affect. Schnelrla (1959) dichotomized per
ceptual phenomenon in his biphaslc theory that weak
stimuli elicit approach while strong stimuli elicit with
drawal behavior. Stechler and Latz (1966) applied a
parallel dichotomy to their observation of excitatory
processes accompanying attention and arousal in the
neonate. They speculated that pleasure implies approach
and distress or unpleasure implies withdrawal.
Using a mlcor-longltudlnal method (observed for six
weeks, six days per week), they observed three newborn
normal offspring. The babies were exposed to certain
classes of visual stimuli inoluding: (1) black and white
>6
drawings of stylized faces and geometric forma, (2) real
faces held quiet and still, and (3) real faces presented
while moving, talking, smiling, and animated. They sum
marized their results In terms of two principal behavioral
phenomena. The first they oalled obligatory attention,
which was a significant tendency for the Infants to attend
to all stimuli after the sixth day, and which peaked about
the tenth day. They reported that before the period of
obligatory attention (I.e., prior to the sixth day), the
turning of the eyes and sometimes the head away from the
target area tended to be slow, gradual and rather an in
different drift away, as if the attentive state were simply
waning. However, following this period the looking away
seemed deliberate, intentional and related to the nature
of the stimulus.
The second phenomenon they reported on was arousal
In relation to visual stimuli. Essentially attention in
creases during the first week. A correlate of increased
attention was a diminution of mild endogenous aotlvity so
that a baby who was mildly awake but fussing would stop
fussing as his attention was caught by the target
stimulus.
Interestingly, certain olasses of stimuli lead to
an inorease in level of arousal within the first minute of
their exposure, rather than to be associated with the
37
maintenance of a low level of activity. These stimuli
elloited briefer fixations, as the excitation seemed to
interrupt the fixation, in contrast to neutral stimuli
eliciting uninterrupted gazing. The exoitlng stimulus
was the human face.
With two of the babies observed, the excitation
showed many of the signs of pleasure. But another Infant
who initially showed excitation to social stimulation up
to the sixteenth day, developed a different response to
the human faoe. At seventeen days, on a three-minute ex
posure to social stimulation, she looked away from the
face more than she looked at it. At 28 days she spent 85
per oent of the three minutes looking away from an un-
moving full face. On the same day she responded to a
control stimulus, a real profile, with only 38 per cent
turning away, while the bull's eye pattern was disregarded
only three per cent of the three-minute observation.
The observers were impressed with its day-after-day
repeated and deliberate quality. The looking away was not
necessarily associated with rising excitation. The baby
appeared perfectly calm, but after a few seconds of look
ing at the stimulus would turn away and lie staring at the
ceiling. They report an occasion when she was more active
and moved her head back and forth three or four times in
a thirty-second period, each time passing her gaze across
38
the E*s faoe but not letting her eyes rest on it. At
thirty-one days she looked away from faces 60 per cent
but looked away from a stylized drawing of a faoe only
one per oent of the time.
It is oertainly puzzling and challenging that the
presentation of a face at this age can lead specific
withdrawal responses which are clearly based on informa
tional rather than energio qualities of the stimulus.
Stechler and Latz suggest it may be a primate vestige
wherein full face presentation is often coded as threat.
They also suggest it may be an Intolerance of non-
reciprocation or Inappropriate reciprocation established
very early in life. In either case remains the question
of whether this is a normal developmental phenomenon or
an early sign of pathology.
Gaze aversion and absent smile response in young
infants was observed by Dr. William Bucher of the Los
Angeles Children’s Hospital in his examination of young
Infants from temporary foster homes ( 1969). Not only did
oertain 3 to 5-month old infants avoid eye contaot, and
not smile, but when the examiner tried to pursue the line
of sight to these babies, crying was sometimes precipi
tated. These observations were more commonly seen in in
fants from most other homes. In a five-year period, 85
babies were observed; 15 showed avoidanoe of eye contact
39
and absence of smile response; two "high incidence" foster
homes accounted for 11 of these 15 babies (there were 15
different foster homes) (Buoher* 1969).
Subsequently* Bucher made observations of three
other groups of inf suits in the specified age range. They
are listed in order of increasingly optimum nurturant
care:
Group 1: 25 infants hospitalized for various
conditions•
Group 2: 50 inf suits seen at Health Department
well-baby clinic.
Group 3: 50 infants seen in private practice.
In these groups* this "social dyscommunioatlon"
phenomenon was observed in 40 per cent of the hospitalized
group, four per cent of infants in the well-baby group,
and none from the private practice group. However* it
was reported in this group that four showed apprehension
of strangers at five months of age. This phenomenon may
be one of the earliest signs in evaluating the quality of
the mother-child relation..
The Effeot of Gaze Aversion
Qfthgra
In general* adult observers report the uncomfortable
feeling of being used impersonally. Gaze aversion seems
to oonnote social exclusion. Hutt and Valzey (1966)
studied autlsts and other handicapped children In a play*
room situation. The autistic children were the least ag
gressive. They would abandon rather than fight for a
toy. But Interestingly enough* though seemingly passive
and good targets for aggression* they were never attacked.
Hutt and Valzey ( 1966) indicate that their gaze aversion
had a signalling function similar to "facing away" In the
klttiwake or "headflagging" in the herring gull. These
are behaviors which ethologists, such as Tinbergen (1959),
have termed "appeasement behaviors." Gaze aversion seemed
to inhibit threats or aggressive acts from others. With
a larger group, the autlsts moved nearer the periphery of
the room, often to engage in solitary play.
Autistic children could provide a good means of
assessing the importance of gazing and smiling as a social
releaser. Wolff (1963) and Ambrose ( 1963) . discuss the im
portant role of smiling in ensuring the development of
close mother-child Interaction. Wolff ( 1963) found that a
significant proportion of his mothers were aware of a
dramatic Intensification of their feelings toward their
baby when they became aware that baby was usually respond
ing to them* at four to six weeks.
While autistic children can and do smile* if they
fail to develop eye-to-eye contact it is possible that
maternal enthusiasm and reassurance may wane. Even when
to
the child, smiles. If It Is not accompanied by eye-to-eye
contact, the mother cannot be certain the smile was meant
for her.
B z e - f r P r - g y i L . Q f , . S . t S a n £ e . S § . a .
Hutt and Ounsted (1966) note that looking at
another person Indicates a readiness to Interact. Con
versely, they view gaze aversion as a means of avoiding
social contact. In many animal species, looking away
serves as a "cutoff" act which permits an organism to
modulate Its flight or aggressive responses while main
taining physical proximity to a conspeolflc (Chance,
1962). To the extent that these tendencies to look at or
away from another person are subject to environmental
modification. It seems reasonable to suggest that an In
fant's early dladic gaze experiences with his mother may
contribute to the way he will Interact with strangers.
Robson, Pedersen and Moss (1969) designed an experi
ment to assess the predictive value of early mutual visual
regard between mother and infant in relation to the fear of
strangers and social approach behavior measured several
months later. Also, they attempted to describe the extent
to which an infant's gaze behavior with a stranger is a
useful measure of his overall readiness to approach or
withdraw from social objects.
h2
Gaze Aversion and Childhood
F j& M I obx
Eye-to-eye contact indicates a readiness to inter
act. Gaze aversion, the failure to gaze fixate, also has
an Important social effect. This behavior is a persistant
and characteristic feature on children with the syndrome
of early childhood autism. The literature on childhood
autism agrees that a major diagnostic feature of the dis
order described by Kanner and Eisenberg (1958) is "sus
tained impairment of interpersonal relationships," and a
general inability to relate to other people.
Hutt and Ounsted (1966) attempted to clearly
delineate the components of sooial interaction which
clarified the autistic profile. The major initiating
variable they report is the avoidance of face-to-face
contaot. They describe how the observed children would
approach adults, gesture to them, even raise their arms
to be picked up, but shield their eyes from any contact
with the adult's face.
Since the human face appeared to be consistently
avoided, they decided to investigate which facial con
figuration would elicit the greatest amount of avoldanoe,
using cardboard models of a happy face, a sad face, a
blank face, a monkey and a dog.
While normal children showed least interest in the
blank faoe, autistic children showed least interest in the
* * • 3
happy and sad faces, more in the blank face, and the
animal faces, but most of their attention went to en
vironmental stimuli such as light switches, windows,
doorknobs, etc.
Hutt and Ounsted suggest that these children are in
a state of high physiologioal and behavioral arousal.
They refer to the fact that normal adults in certain
states of high arousal, such as embarrassment or fear,
fail to gaze fixate. In this Instance, gaze aversion has
the effect of reducing arousal. They suggest that it is
possible that in those species in whloh the dominant re
ceptor modality is vision, gaze aversion is a built-in
biological component of high arousal. Their observation
also suggests that gaze aversion has a signalling function
which serves to Inhibit aggression on the part of others.
Schopler (1965) discusses the possible constitu
tional characteristics which would make normal patterns of
mothering inappropriate for some infants. He enumerates
the various receptor processes including the visual system
whloh seem defective. Schopler suggests that perceptual
deficits in the Infant fall to give the mother necessary
feedbaok for her approach behavior. This pattern could
very well explain Kanner*s notion of the autistic child's
"icebox mothers."
These preceding studies have established the
relevance of eye contact for social Interaction, and its
role as a primary cue and reward to intimate relation
ships.
CHAPTER II
DEVELOPMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
Recapitulation of the Theoretical Background
In the preceding chapter, various papers were cited
which posit the development of human relationships within
an ethologloal framework. Bowlby (1958) refers to Innate
releaser mechanisms, Emerson and Schaffer (1964) to an at
tachment need, and Ainsworth (1963) to a social sensi
tivity faotor.
Although social sensitivity, responslvlty or at
tachment can be measured In a variety of ways, a visual
response, and specifically eye contact, seems to be the
measure of choloe for several reasons: (1) There are
neurophyslologlcal data (Hodge, 1969; Fantz, 1963) to
suggest that the visual system Is the most developed of
the sensory modalities at the time of birth. (2) This
would make It the first sensory system to Identify,
organize and process the many physical stimuli which will
become psychologically meaningful to the Individual, I.e.,
gestures, facial expression and eye contact. (3) The
eyes are the most potent, first flgural entity con
sistently perceived by the Infant. The eye has the best
45
k6
combination of those qualities which attract Infant
fixation: figure, small enough to be perceived, with a
minimum of multiple fixation, color, movement and light
fixation, ( i f ) The measure of eye contact is relevant at
all stages of development as it is related to the nature
of interaction between those persons (Argyle and Dean,
1965). It does not drop out and lose its significance
over time. ( 5) Last, the lack of eye contact (excluding
blindness) at all stages of development is a significant
symptom of pathology (Hutt and Ounsted, 1966). Therefore,
if the visual response and specifically eye-to-eye oon-
tact is selected as a measure of social development, it
should discriminate between groups of high and low social
responders.
Gewirtz ( 1963)* from a learning theory model,
postulated that appropriate caretaking is reinforced by
the infant*s social responses. Bowlby (1958), from an
ethological model, suggested that the infant*s social re
sponses act as a stimulus to elicit maternal caretaking.
Thus, high or low visual response can be considered a
stimulus or response variable, but in either case it should
relate to maternal caretaking activities. As a response
variable, high maternal caretaking should produce greater
motivation for positive social contact. As a stimulus
variable, high infant visual responsivity should elicit
greater amounts of maternal caretaking behavior.
Assuming that Increased maternal care provides a
more rich and varied environment, those Infants would re
ceive greater stimulation which would enhance their mental
and motor environment. This assumption Is based on the
diminished performance of Infants reared in deprived en
vironments, as related in the literature on maternal de
privation and Institutionalization (Ainsworth, 1966).
Experimental Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were generated from the
preceding theoretical development:
1. Low gaze infants should receive less maternal
caretaking. The quality may also be different.
2. Low gaze Infants should score lower on tests of
Infant development.
3* Infants reoelvlng less maternal caretaking
should score lower on the Bayley Scales of
Infant Development.
Subjects
One hundred babies, with a mean age of four months,
and a range from three months one day, to four months
thirty days were recruited and screened for gazing behavior
^8
in seven well-baby clinics scattered throughout the city.
Subjects (Ss) were recruited at the four to six
month age level to avoid the labile state of arousal
characteristic of younger infants, and the eight month
anxiety of the older infant (Spitz, 1950)*
Age and sex differences did not discriminate between
high or low gazers, their caretaking or scores on the
Bayley Scales.
Operational Definitions and
£Xfi2§&2Xfi§.
Eve contact.— To test for eye contact the infant
was placed upon an unobstructed examining table in a quiet
room of the well-baby clinic.
An initial assessment of visual fixation and track
ing behavior was made, preceding the three minute observa
tion, to ascertain that all infants could focus and follow
an object. A brightly colored object was held in front
of the infant, as he lay on the table in a prone position.
The object was held directly in front and then moved side-
to-slde for the tracking response. All Infants passed
this initial screening.
The infant was placed on the table by its mother
while 0 stood at the mother's side. The mother then
stepped out of view and 0 attempted to make eye oontact
with the infant. 0 registered the occurrence and duration
of any eye contact by raising a finger behind her back.
*J- 9
which B then recorded. A total time of three minutes was
allotted for the contact to be made and maintained. The
measure was recorded as the duration of total eye oontact.
The experimenter seleoted three minutes as an
optimal time period beoause It seems long enough for the
Initial orienting response to have subsided, but short
enough for the face to maintain Its novel characteristic
and avoid habituation.
The screening for eye contact was done by three
examiners working in teams of two. They were pretrained
by the experimenter In the following manner* A series of
randomly ordered Instances of fifteen second gazes was
presented to each examiner Individually. On some of the
trials B was determinedly making eye contact, and on
other trials she would mask eye contact (look at bridge
of nose instead of the eyes) or deliberately look at some
thing else. The examiners responded verbally as to
whether or not eye contact had been established. This
procedure was repeated until they reached a degree of
agreement (A%) of .85. To compute the degree of agreement
the formula was used, where A = agreements, and D *
disagreements. Prior to the experiment, but after train
ing, the examiners reached A% of .90, .85, and .91.
From this sample of 100 babies, two extreme groups
of high and low gazers were seleoted for further study
50
(N * 10 per group). Mean age for high gazers was 5.3
months, and mean age for low gazers was 5.0 months. The
grand mean for gazing was 78 seconds, with a range from
179 to 3 seconds. The mean for gazing in the high group
was 170 seconds, with a range from 179 to 163» Mean for
gazing in the low group was 18.9 seconds, with a range
from 3 to 33 seconds. There was no overlap of scores
between the two groups.
Following the initial screening, the twenty
families were contacted by telephone to make appointments
for the three-hour observation. The two Es involved in
the home observation procedure were ignorant of the in
fants* score on gazing. Of the initial twenty families,
only one had to be replaced due to vacation plans. (A
boy in the high group was replaced by another boy with a
score within one point.)
Caretaking.— Rhelngold»s (i 960) procedure for
measuring maternal care in terms of a time sample of the
actual operations was selected because it affords more
reliability than other measures available. Rhelngold
(i 960) found a difference between care of infants in home
and in institution. This difference was in the amount of
the different kinds of activities and not in the kinds of
activities per se. Every activity performed by a mother
at home was performed, however infrequently, in the insti
tution.
51
Rhelngold (i 960) suggests that the care which home
Infants receive may vary a great deal from one home to
another, while Institution care from Infant to Infant Is
more similar. Then, if maternal care affeots infant be
havior, one would expect greater differences between home
Infants and less difference between institutionalized In
fants .
For each S a three-hour period, from 9 A.M. to 12
A.M., was sampled. Each infant was observed by two pre
trained examiners. Pre-training consisted of five hours
of practice In time-sampled observations on five Infants
not Included in the study. A% at the end of the pre-
training was .91*
The observation time sample consisted of the
examiners observing S for one minute, followed by a one-
minute off period, during which time they recorded all
relevant activity on the data sheet (Appendix 1). The
data sheet included infant activity, caretaking activities,
location of Infant, other people in the environment. An
electronically timed soft beeper sounded at each minute
Interval.
After each ten-minute segment of one minute on, one
minute off, the examiners took a five-minute break, where
upon they resumed the one-minute on-off schedule. Four
ten-minute on-off segments were collected each hour. The
52
examiners were Instructed to put the mother and any other
members of the household at ease by being friendly and
conspicuously making the Infant the focus of observation.
When mothers were originally queried for permission to do
this home observation, they were told that this was a study
of Infant visual behavior patterns.
Bavlev scales.—-The development of a revised scale,
"An Infant Scale of Mental Development" (Bayley, 1958),
covering age levels from birth to 15 months, has recently
been published by Bayley and co-workers (Appendix 2). The
new series uses the original norms of the "California
First Year Mental Scale" (Bayley, 1933) but Includes
alterations, deletions and new additions. Some new items
are derived from the Griffiths and Cattell scales.
In Bayley*s examination, the following instruments
are used:
1. Soale of Mental Development.
2. Scale of Motor Development.
The latter two furnish Information that supplements
the two test scales and gives a total developmental scale.
The point scoring system is used, with scores con
verted into standard scores by a table of means and
standard durations. Norms are provided for each half-
month level from 1 to 15 months. Mental ages can be ob
tained from this table, but the small standard deviations
53
at these early months make the use of an IQ score In
advisable, according to Stott and Ball ( 1965).
The test was administered Individually at each
home. In the presence of the Infant's mother (she held
the Infant). The testing session lasted for about twenty
minutes, and the examiner then went to her oar and scored
the test.
CHAPTER III
RESULTS
Reliability
As described In Chapter II, the three examiners
assessing Infant gaze behavior were Individually pre
trained by the experimenter to a percentage of agreement
(k%) with E of .8?. The formula used for this relation
ship was: Agree^^^sagree* Then twlce durlnS the
screening period they were Individually retested by E and
found to obtain a reliability of . 91, .82, and .90 at the
end of the first week, and .90, . 85, and .91 at the end
of the second week.
The two examiners doing the Rhelngold home observa
tion procedure were pre-trained to a reliability of .91
with each other. This reliability was obtained after five
hours of observation on five Individual babies.
The entire three-hour observation period data for
all twenty Ss were analyzed for observer reliability (re
call that two observers visited each home). Overall the
percentage of agreement \k%) was . 98. k% between observers
on maternal caretaking for low gazers was .97. and k% for
the high gaze group was . 9 8. k% on infant activity for
5^
55
low gazers was . 98. and k% was .99 for the high gaze data.
The Bayley Scales of Infant Development were ad
ministered by an examiner who had previously evaluated 50
infants using this instrument.
Inter-Relationship Between the Three
Sets of Measurements
Group Differences; Rheingold
Observation Data
Data were analyzed for the entire three-hour ob
servation and no significant differences were obtained,
although the low gaze group had systematically higher
scores in maternal caretaking. The amount of sleep seemed
to be evenly distributed as indicated by a non-signifleant
t = . 51.
Table 1 gives the means and the ranges of the item
scores for the Rhelngold maternal care, number of persons
in room, location, and infant activity. Data presented
here were recorded during the first awake hour of each
baby*s record. One hour was the lowest common denominator
of an uninterrupted awake state for all twenty babies.
The amount of caretaking between the high and the
low gazers was significantly different, with the low gazers
receiving a higher mean score (72.6) than the high gazers
(^5«8), t (18) = 2.2, p < .05. Low gazers had signifi
cantly higher mean scores on the following maternal oare-
taking items:
56
Looks at faoe
Talks to infant
Shows affection
Plays
Holds
High gazers had a significantly higher score on
"diapering." There were no significant differences be
tween feeding or bathing items.
No significant differences were revealed between
high gaze and low gaze infants on Infant Activity items
as a whole. The mean score for high gazers was 55. 6,
and for low gazers 55*9 (t = .04). However, there was
a significant difference in "irritability" between high and
low gazers. The concept of irritability refers to be
haviors included in the items of protests, fusses and
cries. Low gazers had a total of 42.5 such items and a
mean of 4.2; high gazers had a total of 12 instances and
a mean of 1.2, (t [18] = 2.14, p < .05).
An r was computed for irritability and caretaking
with the following results:
Irritability-Caretaking for all 20 Ss r * .41
Irritability-Caretaking for high gazers r = .51
Irritability-Caretaking for low gazers r = .38
Levels of significance for these correlations was .05*
The Bayley Scales of Infant Development Include two
57
separate scores, a Mental Development Index (MDI) and a
Psychomotor Development index (PBI). High gazers had a
mean MDI of 108, and a mean PDI of 112. Low gazers had a
mean MDI of 112, and a mean PDI of 119. T tests Indicated
no significant difference between the two groups for these
scores.
Group Differences: Rhelngold-
^^X-lAtejj^at^oflshlp
T-tests did not reveal any significant differences
between infants receiving high and low amounts of maternal
caretaking and their scores on the mental or psychomotor
sections of the Bayley scales (though MDI and PDI are
systematically higher for low gazers, who receive signifi
cantly higher maternal caretaking scores).
Both the Bayley Scores and Caretaking Scores were
normally distributed for all 20 babies combined, making it
possible to compute the following correlation coefficients
based on the entire sample:
1. Rhelngold Maternal Caretaking and Bayley
Psychomotor: r a .^5» P < *05.
2. Rhelngold Maternal Caretaking and Bayley
Mental: r « .22.
3. Rhelngold Infant Activity and Bayley Psycho
motor: r « .23.
4. Rhelngold Infant Activity and Bayley Mental:
r * • 26 «
These latter three failed to achieve significance.
It was previously noted that low gazers had a higher motor
score, though not significantly different. A chi square
test of relationship between highest and lowest gazers
and highest and lowest psychomotor scores did not achieve
significance.
Data were examined for maternal caretaking while
controlling for Irritability, but no significant differ
ences were found.
59
TABLE 1
MEAN AND RANGES OP MATERNAL CARE AND INFANT ACTIVITY
N of Infants in Each Group + 10
Time Sample = 1 Hour
N of Observations for Each Infant * 20
High Gaze Low Gaze
Item
Mean Range Mean Range
Caretaking1 3 45.8 8
93
72.6 6.5-120
Looks at face 11.6 1
-
18
9.1
2
- 17
Talks 12.1
5
< w
20 15.0 2
- 19
Talks to infant1 3
7.1*
0
-
1 1* 11.8 0 - 18
Pats
3.1
0
-
11* 6.0 . 0
- 15
Shows affection®
2.9
0
m
13
6.1 0
- 15
Plays® 2.0 0
m
10 7.6 1 - 16
Holds®
2.3
0
-
5 5.9
0 - 11
Diapers®
1.3
0
m
3 .3
0 - 2
Bathes .1 0
m
1 0 0 - 0
Feeds 1.6 0
-
5 1.7
0 - 8
Dresses .6 0
-
i *
.3
0 - 1
Adjusts position®
3.5
0
-
13 6.3
0 - 11*
Rocks 0 0 0 0 - 0
Other
.3
0 1 0 0 - 0
Location, of Infant
In orib 5.8
5
-
20 5.8 0 - 18
In armsa
2.5
1
m
5
!*.2 2 - 10
Seated®
5.9
1
- 8 2.8 0 - 8
Bath 0 0
.
0
.3
2 - 12
Other location 6.6
3
m
18 6.6 2 ■ 16
Out of own room
13.7 9
m
20 10.8 0 - 20
60
TABLE 1— Continued
Item
High Gaze Low Gaze
Mean Range Mean Range
N Pe;c.3Qng_lia.. RfiQSl
0 3.8 0 - 11
5.3 0-13
1
7.1
1 • 16
7.9 1-19
2b 5.8 0
- 13
3.8
0-17
3+ 3.4
0 - 16 2.6 0-10
N Persons Within 6 Pt
0
3.7
0 - 11 5.8 0-14
1 7.8 1 — 16 8.8
1-19
2b 5.4 0 - 12 3.8
0-17
3b
2.8 0 - 16 1.4
0 - 7
Vocalizes
11.5
0 - 20 10.6 3-18
Vocalizes to mother
.5
0
- 3
1.4 0-11
Protestsb 0 0 - 0
.5 0 - 3
Fussesb 1.0 0 - 4 3.0 0 - 8
Criesb .2 0 - 2 .8 0 - 4
Finger in mouth
4.9
0 - 11 4.2 0-12
Bottle in mouth
1.5
0
- 5 2.7 0 - 9
Plays with toy 10.6 0 - 18 12.0
5-19
Plays with body 4.2 0 - 20 1.2
0 - 5
Plays with clothing®
6.5
0
- 3
.8
0 - 3
Bursts of activity 19.6
17 - 20 18.9 17 - 20
Significant differences at p < .01.
Significant differences at p < .05.
CHAPTER IV
DISCUSSION
The main findings were that:
1. Low gazers received more maternal caretaking.
2. Low gazers received higher Irritability scores.
3. High psychomotor scores were associated with
more maternal caretaking.
* » - . High Irritability scores were associated with
more caretaking.
5* Both high and low gaze babies spent equal
amounts of time in their cribs, but when out
of the crib, high gazers spent significantly
more time seated In a chair or swing while low
gazers were being held.
These findings do not support the prediction that
low gaze infants would receive less maternal caretaking
and obtain lower scores on the Bayley Soales, but the
significant correlation (r * .^5. P < »05) between care
taking and psychomotor development gave support to the
prediction that Infants receiving less maternal care
would score lower on the Bayley Scales. Alternative ex
planations will follow a discussion of the measures.
61
62
Numerous Investigators (Robson, Greenman, Wolff,
Bucher, Freedman) have cited evldenoe for the signlfl-
cance of eye contact In the development of maternal at
tachment and social Interaction. All these studies have
treated a lack of eye contact as an Indication of poor
socialization-attachment.
This study operationalized eye contact as the amount
of gaze behavior In a three-minute observation. However,
lack of eye contact as such. Is a discrete variable.
Perhaps It should not be confused with the amount of eye
contact which Is a continuous variable. No eye contact
may have a very different meaning, or etiology, than low
levels of eye contact. Hutt and Ounsted (1957) Implicate
the lack of eye contact as a major Indicator of the
autistic process in children, just as Bucher ( 1969) tenta
tively relates it to failure to thrive Infants. The total
lack of this* behavior seems to be symptomatic of infants
with little to no appropriate social and emotional inter
actions. A discrete lack of eye contact may well be re
lated to the environmental variable of inappropriate
nurturanoe or mothering, while low eye contact may be
more related to individual constitutional differences be
tween Infants.
Chess and Hiomas ( 1963) discuss Individual dif
ferences of temperament in infants and young children.
Amount of gazing, as an Indicator of degree of socializa-
tion-attachment may be a constitutional factor rather
than an index of maternal care or attachment.
For reasons of expediency, the study sample was of
a population of mothers who were concerned enough to take
their babies to a well-baby clinic. It is Important to
note that no instances of lack of eye contact were re
ported for any baby. It might be concluded from this
that amount of gaze behavior, a continuous variable, repre
sents a constitutional factor which is normally distributed
and significantly related to an irritability factor as ob
served in the home observations so that low gaze babies
are more irritable than high gaze babies. Amount of
gazing, per se, may bs a measure of levels of excitation
or attention, rather than a function of maternal care.
There is some evidence to suggest that low gaze
Infants are more developmentally matured. The significant
A correlation coefficient between the Bayley Psychomotor
Index and the Maternal Caretaking Score ( i r = .**5, P <
. 05) indicates that infants higher in psychomotor develop
ment receive more caretaking; and the non-significant
trend for low gaze infants to score higher on the Mental
and Motor parts of the Bayley also suggests a more mature
6b
population in the low gaze group. (Although the chi-
square test for the low gaze-high psychomotor was not
slgnifleant.)
Moss and Robson (1968) Interpret the fact that
three month old girls habituate faster to social stimuli
to suggest a more mature neurological development. Thus
we might conclude that low gazers are a more mature group
of infants.
The Rhelngold procedure for home observation of
maternal caretaking and infant activity is effective in
accounting for differences in quantity and types of
maternal care. Its most serious flaw is its inability to
reflect interactional effects. As Gewirtz (1961) and
Robson ( 1967) indicate, it is not; maternal care or eye
contact per se, but these behaviors when they are con-
tingent upon a baby’s signals which has value for attach
ment behavior. Gewirtz specifies that:
1. Mother’s responses to Infant's needs must be
within a time period short enough for the in
fant to experience contingency experience.
2. Mother's responses must accurately meet the
Infant's needs.
3. The degree of animation and modulation of
facial expression must be sufficient to project
65
sufficient and differentiated affect.
Another problem which the Rhelngold procedure does
not handle is the great: range in infant sleep patterns
and what effect this may have on data collection. Group
differences in amount of sleep was not significant, but
some babies in both the high and low gaze groups slept
for two-thirds of the observation.
It is important to note the high reliability co
efficients which were obtained. This time sample check
list procedure is an effective procedure for collecting
reliable field observations.
Bayley Soales
Rutter (1971) evaluated current procedures for
assessing young infants, and indicated that our current
measures can only give a differential diagnosis in the
case of severely retarded-neurologioally Impaired infants.
Early Infant tests are not sensitive to individual dif
ferences in young infants, and as such have low pre
dictability when correlated with later IQ scores. The
lack of a significant difference in the present case is
therefore not too surprising. Since the test is useful
in identifying severely deficient infants, it is appro
priate in securing a normal population.
Alternative. Hypotheses
66
The amount of caretaking between the high and low
gazers was significantly different, with low gazers re
ceiving more maternal care on all Items except diapering.
Low gazers were observed as significantly more irritable
than high gazers, although the overall activity level
between groups was not significantly different.
The data raise some interesting questions with
respect to ethological and S-B viewpoints. As relates to
the former, why do high gaze babies receive less maternal
care? Could they, In some ways, require less maternal
care? Are they placid low stress organisms who simply
need less? On the other hand, why do Infants receiving
more maternal care gaze less, while Infants receiving
less care gaze more?
In considering the characteristics of the Infant,
although the age difference between high and low gazers
was not significant, there is a developmental basis for
suggesting a less mature neurological system. General
non-specific Irritability often is indicative of a less
mature neonate. Though this suggestion is not confirmed
by the data of the Bayley Scales, we must remember that
the difference on the Bayley Scales is not significant,
and the Scales are valid in the early months only to
screen out significant deviations. Another interpretation
67
of the low gaze-high irritability phenomenon could be
made on the basis of Chess and Thomas' theory on tempera
ment. This syndrome could reflect individual differences.
As such they could be expected to be more consistent over
time. Further support for this interpretation comes from
the failure to obtain significant differences between high
and low gazers on the Bayley Scales.
In assessing differences in maternal caretaking, it
is interesting to see that while the overall pattern of
low gaze-more caretaking was significant, the pattern was
reversed on the diapering item. We have no concrete
evidence to suggest a less neurologically mature, more
frequently wetting baby. Do high gaze infants need less
overall maternal oare because in those instances where it
really counts, under aversive conditions, they receive
significantly more contingent maternal responses than the
low gaze group? Perhaps maternal behavior which is con
tingent upon the infants need and signal is the pattern
of the high gaze group, while low gazers receive more non
need specific care. These conclusions are spurious be
cause they involve such small instances of data, but they
do have implications for future study.
From an S-R position, the data can be interpreted
to suggest that more irritable babies make more demands
via their fussing, crying and protesting which elicits
68
more caretaking responses which in turn reinforces their
irritability behaviors. Conversely it might also indicate
that less secure or knowledgeable mothers are more tense
and preoccupied with their Infants. To relieve their
anxiety regarding Inadequate mothering, they respond more
frequently, especially contingent upon irritable responses
from their baby.
It might also be suggested that infants who re
ceive more maternal care develop a greater awareness of
differences between mother and others, and are not satis
fied or not in need of attention from others, while in
fants not receiving as much attention are more receptive
to social attention from all others, or that those infants
receiving most care are most distracted by her not being
there.
Yet another interpretation is that low gaze Infants
arouse the anxiety of their mothers, as Greenman (1963)
has suggested happens in the case of blind infants.
These mothers may compensate for the lack of reassuranoe
from the infant by paying more attention. Unfortunately
the data do not give us any one-for-one interaction be
tween mother and infant, so that no causal statements are
possible.
Implications for Future Studies
A finding that low gaze-high irritability babies
69
receive significantly more maternal care suggests two
possibilities:
1. A constitutional factor, such as temperament
or more immature neurological development in
Infants elicits more maternal care, or
2. More non-specific maternal care reinforces
low gaze-high irritability behaviors.
Clearly what is needed is a more precise observational
procedure which will reflect specific interactions be
tween mother and child.
It would be Interesting to have the Apgar neonatal
ratings of Infants as an indicator of neurological-
developmental maturity. Are low gaze-high irritability
babies less mature at birth? Or* as Chess and Thomas
et al. ( 1963) Indicate, is this a factor related to
temperament?
Another implication is the necessity to collect a
sample of no-gaze babies (gaze averters) to study their
reactivity patterns and the caretaking they receive. If
this is a pathological condition then there should be
significant differences between no gaze and gazing in
fants, with the low gaze group as an interesting control
group.
CHAPTER V
SUMMARY
One hundred babies from various well-baby clinics
were evaluated for eye contact behavior In a three-minute
observation period. Home observations were made on the
ten highest and ten lowest In amount of eye contact. In
order to assess differences In maternal caretaklng. The
twenty babies were Independently evaluated on the Bayley
Scales of Infant Development. It was found that low gaze
babies received significantly more maternal care, and were
significantly more Irritable than the high gaze group.
The Bayley Soales did not reflect any differences
between these two groups, but the motor scores were posi
tively correlated with caretaklng scores. Likewise
Irritability scores were positively correlated with care-
taking. This suggests that gazing behavior differentiates
two constitutionally different groups of babies which re
ceive different quantities of the same caretaklng activi
ties.
70
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71
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APPENDIX 1
DATA SHEET
80
DATA SHEET
Caretaklng 12 3^5 12 3^5 12 3^5 12 3 » 5 Totals
N of caretakers
Looks at face
Talks
Talks to Infant
Touches
Shows affection
Plays
Holds
Diapers
Bathes
Feeds
Dresses
Adjusts position
Rocks
Aversive behavior
Other
Location of Infant
In crib
In arms
Seated
Bath
Other location
Out of* own room
DATA SHEET— Continued
12 3 4 5 12345 12345 1 2 3 ^5
Totals
N Persons In Room
0
1
2
3+
N Persons Within 6 Ft.
0
1
2
3+
Infant Activities
Awake
Vocalizes
Vocalizes to mother
Protests
Fusses
Cries
Finger In mouth
Bottle In mouth
Plays with toy
Plays with body
Plays with clothing
Bursts of activity
•
Sleep
DATA SHEET— Continued
NAME____________________OBS. DATA_______ AGE_____ BIRTH DATE
OBSERVER____________
FOLLOW-UP DATE AND HOUR
APPENDIX 2
BAYLEY SCALES
8 1 *
BAYLEY SCALES OF INFANT DEVELOPMENT
MENTAL SCALE RECORD FORM
To score: Check P (Pass) or F (Fail). If "Other," mark 0 (Omit), R (Refused), or
RPT (Reported by mother).
Age Score
Placement--------------------------------- “----------
Item and Range Situa- Item Title Notes
No. (Months) tion P F Other
1 0.1 A Responds to sound of bell
2 0.1 B Quiets when picked up
3
0.1
(.1-3)
C Responds to souiid of rattle
4 0.1 (.1-4) Responds to sharp sound:
click of light switch
5
0.1 (.1-1)
D Momentary regard of red ring
6 0.2 (.1-1)
E Regards person momentarily
7
0.4 (.1-2) D Prolonged regard of red ring
8
0.5
(.1-2) D Horizontal eye coordination:
red ring
9 0.7 (.3-3)
F Horizontal eye coordination:
light
10
0.7 (.3-2)
E Eyes follow moving person
11
0.7 (.3-2) E Responds to voice
BAYLEY MENTAL SCALES — Continued
Age
Placement
Item and Bange Situa- Item Title
No. (Months) tion
12
0 0
•
o
(.3-3)
F Vertical eye coordination:
light
13 0.9 (*5-3)
G ♦Vocalizes once or twice
1A 1.0
(.5-3)
D Vertioal eye coordination:
red ring
15 1.2 (.5-3)
F Circular eye coordination:
light
16 1.2
(.5-3)
D Circular eye coordination:
red ring
17 1.3 (.5-3)
G ♦Free inspection of surround
ings
18
1-5
(.5-4) E Social smile: E talks and
smiles
19
1.6 (.7-4) D Turns eyes to red ring
20 1.6 (.5-4) F Turns eyes to light
21 1.6
(*5-5)
G ♦Vocalizes at least 4 times
22
1.7
(1-4) B Anticipatory excitement
23 1.7 (*5-5)
Reacts to paper on face
24
1.9
i
H
Blinks at shadow of hand
Score
Notes
P F Other
BAYLEY MENTAL SCALES— Continued
Age
Placement
Item and Bange Sltua-
No. (Months) tlon
25
o
•
CM
(1-5)
E
26
H
•
CM
.
- o
i
o s
E
27 2.1 (1-6) E
28 2.2
(.7-5)
AC
29 2.3 (.7-5)
30 2.3 (1-5)
G
31
2.4
(1-5)
E
32T
2.5 (1-5)
H
33
2.6
(1-5)
D
3*
2.6
(1-5)
AC
35
2.6 (1-6) B
36 2.8
(2-5)
C
37 3.1
H
1
D
Item Title
Visually recognizes mother
Social smile: E smiles,
quiet
♦Vocalizes to B»s social
smile and talk
Searches with eyes for
sound (specify)
Eyes follow pencil
♦Vocalizes 2 different sounds
Reacts to disappearance of
face
Regards cube
Manipulates red ring
Glances from one object
to another
Anticipatory adjustment to
lifting
Simple play with rattle
Reaches for dangling ring
Score
Notes
P Other
i
Bell
Rattle
00
BAYLEY MENTAL SCALES—.Continued
Item
No.
Age
Placement
and Range
(Months)
Situa
tion
Score
Item Title
P F Other
Notes
38T
3-1
l
CM
39
3.2 ( 1- 6) G
40T 3.2
(1-5)
D
4lT 3.2 ( 1- 6) I
42
3*3
( 2- 6) G
Z j . 3T
3.3
( 2- 6) G
to
3.8 ( 2- 6) D
45
3.8 ( 2- 6) G
46
0 0
.
r\
( 2- 6) D
Follows ball visually across
table
♦Fingers hand in play
Head follows dangling
ring
Head follows vanishing
spoon
♦Aware of strange situation
♦Manipulates table edge
slightly
Carries ring to mouth
♦Inspects own hands
Closes on dangling ring
(Check hand preference)
.Right
.Left
_None
4?
3 .8 ( 2- 6) A Turns head to sound
bell
of
48 3 .9 ( 2- 6)
C Turns head to sound
rattle
of
0 0
49 4.1 ( 2- 6) H Reaches for cube
0 0
BAYLEY MENTAL SCALES — Continued
Item
No.
Age
Placement
and Bange
(Months)
Score
Situa
tion
Item Title
P P Other
Notes
50 4.3 (2-7)
G ♦Manipulates table edge
actively
51
4.4 (2-6) H Eye-hand coordination In
reaching
52 4.4
(2-7)
J Regards pellet
53
4.4
(2-7)
K Mirror Image approach
54 4.6
(3-7)
H Picks up cube (check
hand preference)
55
4.6 (3-8) G ♦Vocalizes attitudes
(describe)
56
57
4 . - 7
4.8
(3-7)
(3-7)
H Retains 2 cubes
Exploitive paper play
58 4.8
(3-8) E ♦Discriminates strangers
59 4.9
(4-8) C Recovers rattle, in crib
60 5.0 (3-8) H Reaches persistently
61
5.1
(3-8) E Likes frolic play
_Right
Left
.None
Pleasure:
Displeasure:
Eagerness:
Satisfaction:
00
\o
BAYLEY MENTAL SCALES — Continued
Age
Placement
Item and Range Situa- Item Title
No. (Months) tion
62 5.2 (4-8) I Turns head after fallen
spoon
63
CM
•
VA
C O
1
jS -
L Lifts inverted cup
64 5.4 • £ -
1
00
H Reaches for 2nd cube
65 5.4 (3-12) K Smiles at mirror image
66 5.4 (4-8) G ♦Bangs in play
67
5.4 (4-8) D Sustained inspection of
ring
68 5.4
C O
1
D Exploitive string play
69 5.5
(4-8) G ♦Transfers object hand
to hand
70 5.7
00
1
- 3 -
H Picks up cube deftly and
directly
71 5.7
< ■ * * »
C O
1
• 3 -
D Pulls string: secures
ring
72 5.8 (4-8) G ♦Interest in sound pro
duction
73
5.8 (4-11) L Lifts cup with handle
74 5.8
0
H
1
- 3 -
M Attends to scribbling
Score
P P Other Notes
BAYLEY MENTAL SCALES — Continued
Age
Placement
and Range
(Months)
Score
Item
No.
Situa
tion
Item Title p p other Notes
75
6.0 (5-10) I Looks for fallen spoon
76 6.2 (**-12) K Playful response to mirror
77 6.3
(**-10) H Retains 2 of 3 cubes offered
78
6.5 (5-10) A - Manipulates bell: Interest
in detail
79
7.0 (5-12) G ♦Vocalizes 4 different
syllables
80
7.1 (5-10)
D Pulls string adaptively:
secures ring
81 7.6 (5-12) E Cooperates in games Note skill at
pat-a-cake for
Motor Scale
item 44
82 7.6
(5-1*0
H Attempts to secure 3 cubes
83 7.8
(5-13)
A Sings bell purposively
8 4 -
7.9 (5-1*0
N ♦Listens selectively to
familiar words
♦May be observed incidentally.
vo
BAYLEY SCALES OF INFANT DEVELOPMENT
MOTOR SCALE RECORD FORM
To score: Check P (Pass) or F (Fail). If ’ 'Other," mark 0 (Omit), R (Refused), or
RPT (Reported by mother).
Age
Placement
Item and Range Situa- Item Title
No. (Months) tion
1 0.1 A Lifts head when held at
shoulder
2 0.1 A Postural adjustment when
held at shoulder
3
0.1 B Lateral head movements
4 0.4
(.1-3)
B Crawling movements
5
0.8
(.3-3)
C ♦♦Retains red ring
6 0.8 (.3-2) C ♦Arm thrusts in play
7
0.8 (.3-2) c ♦Leg thrusts in play
8 0.8
(.3-3)
A Head erect: vertical
9
1.6 (.7-4) A Head erect and steady
10
1.7
(.7-4) C Lifts head: dorsal suspension
11 1.8
(.7-5)
C Turns from side to back
Score
P F Other Notes
BAYLEY MOTOR SCALES— Continued
Item
No.
Age
Placement
and Range
(Months)
Score
Situa
tion
Item Title
P P Other
Notes
12 2.1
(.7-5)
B Elevates self by arms:
prone
13 2.3 (1-5)
D Sits with support
14
2.5 (1-5)
A Holds head steady
15 2.7
(.7-6) ♦Hands predominantly open
16
3.7 (2-7)
E ♦♦Cube: ulnar-palmar
prehension
1?
3.8 (2-6) D Sits with slight support
18 4.2 (2-6) A Head balanced
19
4.4
(2-7)
C ♦Turns from back to side
20 4.8 (3-8) P Effort to sit
21 4.9
(4-8) E ♦♦Cube: partial thumb opposi
tion (radial-palmar)
22
5.3
(4-8) F Pulls to sitting position
23 5.3
(4-8) D Sits alone momentarily
24 5.4
0 0
1
G ♦Unilateral reaching
25
5.6 (4-8) H ♦♦Attempts to secure pellet
BAYLEY MOTOR SCALES — Continued
Item
No.
Age
Placement
and Range
(Months)
Score
Situa
tion
Item Title
P P Other
Notes
26
5.7
C O
i
■ 3 -
G ♦Rotates wrist
27
6.0
00
1
D Sits alone 30 seconds
or more
28 6.4 (4-10) C ♦Rolls from back to
stomach
29
6.6
(5-9)
D Sits alone, steadily
30 6.8
(5-9)
H ♦♦Scoops pellet
31 6.9
(5-10) D Sits alone, good coordina
tion
32
6.9 (5-9)
E ♦♦Cube: complete thumb op
position (radial-digital)
33 7.1 (5-lD
B Prewalking progression
(check method)
_0n abdomen
.Hands and
"knees
.Hands and
feet
.Sits and
hitches
.Other
(describe) v O
-p-
BAYLEY MOTOR 3CALES--Continued
Item
No.
Age
Placement'
and Range
(Months)
Situa
tion
Item Title
Score
P F Other
Notes
34 7.4 (5-H) I Early stepping movements
35 7.4 (6-10) H **Pelle€: partial finger
prehension (inferior
pincer)
36 8.1 (5-12) F Pulls to standing posi
tion
*May be observed Incidentally.
**May be presented during administration of Mental Scale.
V O
VJX

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Asset Metadata

Creator Brown, Susan Rosenzweig (author)

Core Title Eye Contact As An Indicator Of Infant Social Development

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Psychology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Psychology, clinical

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Longstreth, Langdon E. (committee chair), Bucher, William H. (committee member), Greene, Ernest G. (committee member), Heese, Everett W. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-482707

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