• Alex Savin
• March 25, 2022
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Emotions and Emotional Communication in Infants

Newborns are the biggest happiness to their parents, and everything about them is of utmost importance. Parents are not only concerned about their babies’ well-being but are also interested in understanding what their baby wants to ‘tell’ them. Communication in infants is an important topic for research, and in this article, we will try to uncover it.

Communication in Infants With Sign Language

Specialized sign language is sometimes used to communicate with infants and toddlers. While infants and toddlers desire to share their needs and wishes, they cannot do so clearly because speech production lags behind cognitive ability in the first months and years of life. Proponents of baby sign language say that this gap between the desire to communicate and ability often leads to frustration and tantrums. However, since hand-eye coordination develops sooner than the acquisition of verbal skills, infants can learn simple signs for common words such as “eat”, “sleep”, “more”, “hug”, “play”, “cookie”, “teddy bear”, before they can produce intelligible speech.

Important advances have recently been made in studying emotions in infants and the nature of emotional communication between infants and adults. Infant emotions and emotional communications are far more organized than previously thought. Infants display a variety of discrete affective expressions that are appropriate to the nature of events and their context. They also appreciate the emotional meaning of the effective displays of caretakers. The emotional expressions of the infant and the caretaker function to allow them to regulate their interactions mutually. Indeed, a major determinant of children’s development is related to the operation of this communication system. Positive development may be associated with the experience of coordinated interactions characterized by frequent reparations of interactive errors and the transformation of negative affect into positive affect. In contrast, negative development appears to be associated with sustained periods of interactive failure and negative affect.

Quantitative and qualitative literature reviews on sex differences in facial expression processing (FEP) have yielded conflicting findings regarding children. This study was designed to review the literature quantitatively on sex differences in FEP from infancy through adolescence and to evaluate consistency between the course of FEP development and predictions derived from preliminary theoretical models. Results, which indicate a female advantage at FEP, are consistent with predictions derived from an integrated neurobehavioral/social constructivist model. These findings suggest a need for research examining both neurological maturation and socialization as important factors in developing sex differences in FEP and related skills.

How to Understand the Emotions and Feelings of Babies

Studied the effect of maternal facial expressions of emotion on 108 12-mo-old infants in 4 studies. The deep side of a visual cliff was adjusted to a height that produced no clear avoidance and much referencing of the mother. In Study 1, 19 Ss viewed a facial expression of joy, while 17 Ss viewed one of fear. In Study 2, 15 Ss viewed interest, while 18 Ss viewed anger. In Study 3, 19 Ss viewed sadness. In Study 4, 23 Ss were used to determine whether the expressions influenced Ss’ evaluation of an ambiguous situation or whether they effectively controlled behavior merely because of their discrepancy or unexpectedness. Results show that Ss used facial expressions to disambiguate cases. Most Ss crossed the deep side if a mother posed joy or interest while S referenced. If a mother posed fear or anger, few Ss crossed. In the absence of any depth whatsoever, few Ss referenced the mother, and those who did, while the mother was posing fear, hesitated but crossed nonetheless. It is suggested that facial expressions regulate behavior most clearly in contexts of uncertainty.

This study explored 14- and 18-month-old infants’ ability to identify the target of an emotional display. In the visual task, infants were presented with two boxes. Each box contained an object that could be identified by opening the box lid and looking inside. In the tactile task, the things had to be pulled out of the boxes before they could be seen. An experimenter expressed happiness as she looked or put her hand inside one box and disgust as she repeated this action with the other box. Infants were then allowed to explore the boxes. Infants touched both boxes but preferred to search for the happy object. Thus, regardless of age or task, infants identified the target of each emotional display as something inside a box and not the box itself. Infants appeared to use the experimenter’s attentional cues (gaze and action) to interpret her emotional signals and behaved as if they understood that she was communicating about the objects.

Important advances have recently been made in studying emotions in infants and the nature of emotional communication between infants and adults. Infant emotions and emotional communications are far more organized than previously thought. Infants display a variety of discrete affective expressions that are appropriate to the nature of events and their context. They also appreciate the emotional meaning of the effective displays of caretakers. The emotional expressions of the infant and the caretaker function to allow them to regulate their interactions mutually. Indeed, a major determinant of children’s development is related to the operation of this communication system. Positive development may be associated with the experience of coordinated interactions characterized by frequent reparations of interactive errors and the transformation of negative affect into positive affect. In contrast, negative development appears to be associated with sustained periods of interactive failure and negative affect.

Conclusion

Each baby has its way of expressing emotions, but they all usually have expressions of joy and sadness in common. Mothers always find it easiest to recognize the feelings and messages their babies try to convey.