The development of timing
Daniel Messinger, Marygrace Yale,
Alan Cobo-Lewis, Alan Fogel, Meg
Venezia, Susan Acosta, Danielle
Thorp, Peter Mundy, & Tricia Cassel
Supported by NICHD 38336 & 41619 &
The Positive Psychology Foundation
Timing of expressive actions
1.
2.
3.
Window into real-time experience and
interaction
Emotion expression central to infant
communication
Developmental roots of emotion
regulation
Beginning of referential communication
Timing early expressive
behaviors

How do infants coordinate expressive actions in
time and how does this change with age? What is
an event-based approach? Which pairs of infant
expressive behaviors are coordinated in time
(facial expressions and vocalizations, facial
expressions and gazes at a parent’s face, and/or
vocalizations and gazes) and what does this
suggest for the role of facial expressions? Indicate
two patterns in which infant gazes and smiles are
coordinated with mother smiles? How do all these
patterns change with age? What does this suggest
about infant-mother interaction?
Face-to-face/still-face
Promise of assessing infant communicative
intentionality
 Relatively little focus on individual infants
 And their sequences of communicative
behaviors
 Either in the still-face or regular face-toface

Intentional Bid?
Overall research goal
• Assessing intentionality by directly coding
early infant communicative bids has proved
difficult
• Communicative coordination may provide
a window on the interactive development
of intentionality
Events as unit of analysis
B1
B2
GAZE
SMILE
Unit of association = Patterns of actions (e.g., B1 & B2)
Overlapping behaviors create an expressive
signal dependent on how they are patterned
in time
Beyond duration of co-occurrence
Generic Observed Patterns
–
A BEFORE B. E.g., Smile before Gaze

–
A IN B. E.g., Smile in Gaze

–
A smile which begins and ends within a gaze at parent’s face.
B BEFORE A. E.g., Gaze before Smile

–
A smile which begins before and ends within a gaze at parent’s face.
A gaze at parent which begins before and ends within a smile.
B IN A. E.g., Gaze in Smile

A gaze at parent’s face which begins and ends within a smile.
Simulation Procedure
Take Observed Pattern
Expressions
SM
SM
Smile in Gaze
Gazes
Time
Separate into Observed Behaviors
Gazes Gazes
No Smiles Smiles
Away at Mom
SM
SM
Use observed behaviors to create
simulated sequences
Observed Behaviors
Gazes
Away
No Smiles Smiles
Gazes
at Mom
SM
SM
To Create Simulated Pattern
SM
Smile
Gaze
Time
SM
Simulation indicates patterns not due
to chance
Smile
SM
SM
Smile in Gaze!
Observed Pattern
Gaze
Subtract
Simulated
Random Pattern
Repeat 2000 times.
SM
Smile
Gaze
Time
Z = (Observed – Simulated)/SDS
SM
Study 1: Early infant communication
•
•
•
•
Facial expressions
(smiles & frowns)
Facial Expression
Vocalizations (nonreflexive vocalizations)
Gaze direction (gazing
at parent’s face & other)
40 infants at 3- & 6Vocalization --?-- Gaze
months of age in
modified face-to•Yale, Messinger, Cobo-Lewis, et al. (1999; in
face/still-face
press, Developmental Psychology)
•12
& 40 infants at 3- & 6-months of age in
modified face-to-face/still-face
Facial expression & vocalization
Facial Expression
0.75
Vocalization
Mean z-score
0.50
0.25
0.00
-0.25

Facial expressions
encompass vocalizations
in a pattern that does not
change with age or
expression - replicated
SMILES
FROWNS
-0.50
Voc- Voc- Face- FaceBefore- In- Before- InFace Face Voc Voc
Facial expressions and gaze
0.75
Facial Expression
Gaze

Facial expressions –
especially smiles - begin
during gazes at parent’s
face
–
Stronger with age & smile
Mean z-score
0.50
0.25
0.00
-0.25
-0.50
Face- Face- Gaze- GazeBefore- In- Before- InGaze Voc Face Face
Vocalization & Gaze
Vocalizations and
gazes at parent were
not coordinated in
time
0.75
0.50
Mean z-score

0.25
0.00
-0.25
-0.50
Vocalization
--?--
Gaze
Gaze- Gaze- Voc- VocBefore- In- Before- InVoc Voc Gaze Gaze
Centrality of facial expressions

Facial expressions both smiles and frowns -


begin during gazes at
parent’s face
Facial expressions
encompass
vocalizations
Vocalizations and
gazes at parent were
not coordinated in
time
Dynamic formation of patterns




Communicative package
is not pre-formed, but
emerges through two
links
Gaze at parent’s face sets
the stage:
for a facial expression
into which a vocalization
is likely to be inserted
Facial Expression
Vocalization
--?--
Gaze
Communicative signal
dynamically assembles in
real-time
Development of timing?
Smile in gaze  Smile after gaze
Mean z-scores
1.0
3 months
6 months
SMILES
FROWNS
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
Face- Face- Gaze- GazeBefore- In- Before- InGaze Gaze Face Face
Face- Face- Gaze- GazeBefore- In- Before- InGaze Gaze Face Face
Study 2. Interaction &
developmental process
–
–
13 mothers and infants
Interacting weekly in
first 6 months of life
–
–
–
–
Data summed monthly
Infant gazes at
mother’s face
Infant smiles
Mother smiles
–
Analyses relating
infant and mother
smiles are preliminary
–Messinger,
–(in
prep.)
et al.
Infant gaze  Infant smile 
Stops gaze  Stops smile
Gaze-Before-Smile Z Score
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Smile after gaze
-0.2
-0.4
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
Age P eriod in M onths
5-6
Emotion regulation development


Continuous visual contact scaffolds
positive affect between 1 - 3 months as
infants embed smiles in gazes at parent.
Infants gaze away from parent while
smiling between 4 - 6 months, perhaps in
the service of emotion regulation replicated
Infant smile  Mother smile 
Infant stops  Mother stops
.6
Mother
Smile
Z Scores
.5
.4
Infant
Smile
.3
.2
.1
0
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
M onths of Life
5-6
More emotion regulation
development in real-time


Between 4 – 6
months, infant smile
elicits mother smile
and infant stops
smiling, perhaps also
in the service of
emotion regulation
Video
Emotion regulation development

Infant and mother create
moments of mutual
positive affect
–

Infants show increasingly
strong positive affect in this
period
Infants increasingly
manage their own
responses by briefly
disengaging from these
encounters
Mother Smile
Infant Gaze
Infant Smile
Video example
Development of coordination



When infants gaze away from mother while
smiling, it creates a potential bridge to focus on
another object . . .
Alternating gaze between an object and social
partner defines joint attention which develops
between 8 & 12 months and often involves
smiling
Timing: Anticipatory Smiles involve sharing
positive affect with a partner during joint
attention
Early smile before gaze less than
expected by chance
Mean z-scores
1.0
3 months
6 months
SMILES
FROWNS
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
Face- Face- Gaze- GazeBefore- In- Before- InGaze Gaze Face Face
Face- Face- Gaze- GazeBefore- In- Before- InGaze Gaze Face Face
Study 3. Roots of affective sharing



26 typically developing infants
Administered the Early Social-Communication
Scales at 8, 10 and 12 months of age
During episodes of joint attention (JA)
–


Proportion of JA episodes involving smiles
Proportion of Anticipatory Smiles:
–

alternating gaze between object and experimenter
Smiles at an object followed by smiling gaze at the
experimenter
Conventional analyses
Anticipatory smile
Gaze at object
→
Smile
→ Gaze at experimenter
Anticipatory smile
Only anticipatory smiling rises
0.8
0.7
Joint
Attention
(JA) Smiles
/ JA
Anticipator
y Smiles /
Smiles
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
8 Months
10 Months
12 Months
Communicative milestone
Anticipatory smiling, not smiling in general,
became a more likely feature of joint
attention
 When infants gaze at an object, smile, and
then gaze at their social partners, it suggests
the infants are intentionally sharing
something specific - positive emotion about
an object – with another.

Development of timing


A variety of methods can help us understand
The lived or real-time experiences of
–
–
–

Infants communicating
Infants and parents interacting
Infants and experimenters interacting
Revealing the central role of emotional facial
expressions, the roots of emotion regulation, and
the development of affective sharing.