Papers by Merideth Gattis
Infant Mental Health Journal
To understand the role of experience in parenting beliefs about caring for infants, we examined t... more To understand the role of experience in parenting beliefs about caring for infants, we examined the parenting beliefs of pregnant women who were expecting their first child with those of pregnant women who already had at least one other child. A culturally diverse sample of 550 British and Italian women completed self‐report measures evaluating their beliefs about the value of attunement and structure in caregiving, parenting self‐efficacy, and home chaos. Psychometric evaluation confirmed the two‐factor structure of the Baby Care Questionnaire (BCQ) for measuring attunement and structure but did not support configural invariance across the different samples. Beliefs about attunement and structure were related to parenting experience: pregnant women who already had at least one other child reported stronger beliefs in attunement, whereas pregnant women expecting their first child reported stronger beliefs in structure. Regression analyses revealed that the associations between paren...
Journal of Neonatal Nursing
Thi s is a n O p e n Acc e s s d o c u m e n t d o w nlo a d e d fro m ORCA, C a r diff U niv e r... more Thi s is a n O p e n Acc e s s d o c u m e n t d o w nlo a d e d fro m ORCA, C a r diff U niv e r si ty' s in s ti t u tio n al r e p o si t o ry: h t t p s://o r c a. c a r diff.a c. u k/i d/ e p ri n t/ 1 4 3 4 5 4/ This is t h e a u t h o r's v e r sio n of a w o r k t h a t w a s s u b mi t t e d t o / a c c e p t e d fo r p u blic a tio n. Cit a tio n fo r fin al p u blis h e d ve r sio n: Io nio, C hi a r a , M a s c h e r o ni, El e o n o r a, La n d o ni, M a r t a a n d G a t ti s, M e ri d e t h 2 0 2 2. C a ri n g fo r t wi n s d u ri n g inf a n cy: A sy s t e m a ti c r e vi e w of t h e lit e r a t u r e o n sl e e pi n g a n d fe e di n g p r a c ti c e s a m o n g s t p a r e n t s of t wi n s. Jou r n al of N e o n a t al N u r si n g 2 8 (5) , p p.
International Journal of Educational Research, 2021
Numerous studies have documented the benefits of parent-child shared reading of print books, but ... more Numerous studies have documented the benefits of parent-child shared reading of print books, but few studies have examined parent-child reading behaviours with digital personalized books. This lab-based study examined the child language outcomes following shared reading of a personalized digital book by twenty-six British mothers and their 3-to 4-year-old children. The digital book included pages that were individualized to each participating child, with each child's name, photograph, favourite toy and food, as well as generic pages with no personalized content. The findings indicate the significance of personalization features in parent-child shared reading on screen and indicate the importance of parents' role in expanding beyond children's focus on self during shared reading.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022
The extraordinary increase in twin rates and specifically monochorionic twin pregnancies represen... more The extraordinary increase in twin rates and specifically monochorionic twin pregnancies represents a major public health issue due to the associated increased risks for the mother, the child and their relationship. The aim of the present study was to examine the quality of mothers’ behaviour during mother–infant interaction in the early postpartum period by comparing mothers of twins and mothers of singletons during face-to-face interaction with their infants. Demographic and clinical information was collected by trained research psychologists from the mothers’ and the childrens’ clinical records and from interviews with the mothers. At three months (corrected for prematurity), the interactions of the dyads (11 mother-twin infant dyads and 11 mother-singleton dyads) were filmed at participants’ homes in accordance with the procedure of the Global Rating Scales. Maternal behaviour during interactions was assessed and rated by two trained research psychologists. With regard to the mo...
Behavior Research Methods, 2021
Social cognition refers to a broad range of cognitive processes and skills that allow individuals... more Social cognition refers to a broad range of cognitive processes and skills that allow individuals to interact with and understand others, including a variety of skills from infancy through preschool and beyond, e.g., joint attention, imitation, and belief understanding. However, no measures examine socio-cognitive development from birth through preschool. Current test batteries and parent-report measures focus either on infancy, or toddlerhood through preschool (and beyond). We report six studies in which we developed and tested a new 21-item parent-report measure of social cognition targeting 0–47 months: the Early Social Cognition Inventory (ESCI). Study 1 (N= 295) revealed the ESCI has excellent internal reliability, and a two-factor structure capturing social cognition and age. Study 2 (N= 605) also showed excellent internal reliability and confirmed the two-factor structure. Study 3 (N= 84) found a medium correlation between the ESCI and a researcher-administered social cogniti...
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2019
Co py ri g h t a n d m o r al ri g h t s fo r p u blic a tio n s m a d e a v ail a bl e in ORCA a... more Co py ri g h t a n d m o r al ri g h t s fo r p u blic a tio n s m a d e a v ail a bl e in ORCA a r e r e t ai n e d by t h e c o py ri g h t h ol d e r s .
Children, Youth and Environments, 2017
The current study investigated the affordances of direct and indirect experience of nature on par... more The current study investigated the affordances of direct and indirect experience of nature on parent-child talk. Parents and children produced a wider range of nature words when exploring a park (direct experience) than when exploring a thematicallymatched indoor visitor center (indirect experience). Parents and children also produced more plant-related nature word types when exploring the park compared to the visitor center. Direct experience of nature increases the diversity and specificity of parent-child talk about nature, and mitigates the phenomenon of 'plant blindness' (cf. Wandersee & Schussler, 1999). Direct experience of nature provides an optimal context for children to learn the language of nature and consequently to cultivate children's status as custodians of the natural world.
Infant behavior & development, 2014
The aims of this study were to examine and compare the development of parenting cognitions and pr... more The aims of this study were to examine and compare the development of parenting cognitions and principles in mothers following preterm and term deliveries. Parenting cognitions about child development, including thinking that is restricted to single causes and single outcomes (categorical thinking) and thinking that takes into account multiple perspectives (perspectivist thinking), have been shown to relate to child outcomes. Parenting principles about using routines (structure) or infant cues (attunement) to guide daily caregiving have been shown to relate to caregiving practices. We investigated the continuity and stability of parenting cognitions and principles in the days following birth to 5 months postpartum for mothers of infants born term and preterm. All parenting cognitions were stable across time. Categorical thinking increased at a group level across time in mothers of preterm, but not term, infants. Perspectivist thinking increased at a group level for first-time mother...
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 2000
The view that the motor program activated during imitation is organized by goals was investigated... more The view that the motor program activated during imitation is organized by goals was investigated by asking pre-school children to imitate a set of hand gestures of varying complexity that were made by an experimenter sitting in front of them. In Experiments 1 and 3, children reached for the correct object (one of their own ears or one of two dots on a table) but preferred to use the ipsilateral hand. This ipsilateral preference was not observed when hand movements were made to only one ear (Experiment 2), or when movements were diercted at space rather than physical objects (Experiment 3). The results are consistent with the notion that imitation is guided by goals and provide insights about how these goals are organized.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 2003
We review a series of behavioural experiments on imitation in children and adults that test the p... more We review a series of behavioural experiments on imitation in children and adults that test the predictions of a new theory of imitation. Most of the recent theories of imitation assume a direct visual–to–motor mapping between perceived and imitated movements. Based on our findings of systematic errors in imitation, the new theory of goal–directed imitation (GOADI) instead assumes that imitation is guided by cognitively specified goals. According to GOADI, the imitator does not imitate the observed movement as a whole, but rather decomposes it into its separate aspects. These aspects are hierarchically ordered, and the highest aspect becomes the imitator's main goal. Other aspects become sub–goals. In accordance with the ideomotor principle, the main goal activates the motor programme that is most strongly associated with the achievement of that goal. When executed, this motor programme sometimes matches, and sometimes does not, the model's movement. However, the main goal e...
Memory & Cognition, 1994
Cognitive Science, 2008
We investigated humor as a context for learning about abstraction and disbelief. More specificall... more We investigated humor as a context for learning about abstraction and disbelief. More specifically, we investigated how parents support humor understanding during book sharing with their toddlers. In Study 1, a corpus analysis revealed that in books aimed at 1-to 2-year-olds, humor is found more often than other forms of doing the wrong thing including mistakes, pretense, lying, false beliefs, and metaphors. In Study 2, 20 parents read a book containing humorous and non-humorous pages to their 19-to 26-month-olds. Parents used a significantly higher percentage of high abstraction extratextual utterances (ETUs) when reading the humorous pages. In Study 3, 41 parents read either a humorous or non-humorous book to their 18-to 24-month-olds. Parents reading the humorous book made significantly more ETUs coded for a specific form of high abstraction: those encouraging disbelief of prior utterances. Sharing humorous books thus increases toddlers' exposure to high abstraction and belief-based language.
Cognitive Development, 2012
Two studies were conducted to examine infants' ability to discern intentions from lexical and pro... more Two studies were conducted to examine infants' ability to discern intentions from lexical and prosodic cues. Two groups of 14-18month-olds participated in these studies. In both studies, infants watched an adult perform a sequence of two-step actions on novel toys that produced an end-result. In the first study actions were marked intentionally with both lexical and prosodic cues. In the second study, the lexical markers of intention were presented in Greek, thus providing infants with prosodic but not lexical cues. In both studies, infants reproduced more intentional than accidental actions, suggesting that infants can infer intentions from prosodic cues.
Cognitive Development, 2005
Recent studies with "late-signing" deaf children (deaf children born into families in which no-on... more Recent studies with "late-signing" deaf children (deaf children born into families in which no-one uses a sign language) have indicated that they have difficulty performing tasks that require them to reason about other people's false beliefs. However, virtually no research has so far investigated how far late signers' difficulties with mental state understanding extend. This paper reports one study that uses an imitation paradigm to examine whether late signers may also have difficulty in interpreting other people's actions in terms of their goals. Both late-signing (N = 15) and second generation "nativesigning" deaf children (N = 19) produced a pattern of responses to this task that indicates that they can and readily do view the actions of others as goal-directed. We conclude that this form of mental state understanding (generally seen as a precursor to understanding false beliefs) is intact in late-signing deaf children.
Cognitive Development, 2008
We investigated whether 19-36-month-olds (1) differentiate mistakes from jokes, and (2) understan... more We investigated whether 19-36-month-olds (1) differentiate mistakes from jokes, and (2) understand humorous intentions. The experimenter demonstrated unambiguous jokes accompanied by laughter, unambiguous mistakes accompanied by the experimenter saying, "Woops!", and ambiguous actions that could either be a mistake or a joke, accompanied by either laughter or, "Woops!" Toddlers were asked to try. Nineteen-to 36-month-olds differentiated jokes and mistakes by copying unambiguous jokes and correcting unambiguous mistakes. Only 25-36-month-olds differentiated mistakes and humorous intentions by copying ambiguous actions marked by laughter, and correcting those marked by, "Woops!" Understanding humorous intentions precedes understanding intentions behind pretense, lying, and false beliefs, thus may be a first step in understanding that others can intend to do the wrong thing.
Cognitive Development, 2010
Using an elicited imitation paradigm, we investigated whether young children imitate the communic... more Using an elicited imitation paradigm, we investigated whether young children imitate the communicative intentions behind speech. Previous research using elicited imitation has shown that children tend to correct ungrammatical sentences. This finding is usually interpreted as evidence that children, like adults, remember and reproduce the gist of linguistic information. In three studies, we tested whether this tendency is also a product of their intention understanding. Replicating and extending previous research by Meltzoff [Meltzoff A. N. (1995). Understanding the intentions of others: Re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children. Developmental Psychology, 31, 838-850], our first two experiments showed that children tend to correct ungrammatical sentences. A critical third experiment showed that children correct ungrammatical sentences only when they believe the model to be an intentional agent. These results complement previous findings from the action domain and strongly support the claim that imitation is based on understanding the intentions of others.
British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2011
Previous studies indicate that the acoustic features of speech discriminate between positive and ... more Previous studies indicate that the acoustic features of speech discriminate between positive and negative communicative intentions, such as approval and prohibition. Two studies investigated whether acoustic features of speech can discriminate between two positive communicative intentions: humour and sweet‐sincerity, where sweet‐sincerity involved being sincere in a positive, warm‐hearted way. In Study 1, 22 mothers read a book containing humorous, sweet‐sincere, and neutral‐sincere images to their 19‐ to 24‐month‐olds. In Study 2, 41 mothers read a book containing humorous or sweet‐sincere sentences and images to their 18‐ to 24‐month‐olds. Mothers used a higher mean F0 to communicate visual humour as compared to visual sincerity. Mothers used greater F0 mean, range, and standard deviation; greater intensity mean, range, and standard deviation; and a slower speech rate to communicate verbal humour as compared to verbal sweet‐sincerity. Mothers used a rising linear contour to commun...
Behavior Research Methods, 2012
In the present article, we introduce the continuous unified electronic (CUE) diary method, a long... more In the present article, we introduce the continuous unified electronic (CUE) diary method, a longitudinal, event-based, electronic parent report method that allows real-time recording of infant and child behavior in natural contexts. Thirty-nine expectant mothers were trained to identify and record target behaviors into programmed handheld computers. From birth to 18 months, maternal reporters recorded the initial, second, and third occurrences of seven target motor behaviors: palmar grasp, rolls from side to back, reaching when sitting, pincer grip, crawling, walking, and climbing stairs. Compliance was assessed as two valid entries per behavior: 97 % of maternal reporters met compliance criteria. Reliability was assessed by comparing diary entries with researcher assessments for three of the motor behaviors: palmar grasp, pincer grip and walking. A total of 81 % of maternal reporters met reliability criteria. For those three target behaviors, age of emergence was compared across data from the CUE diary method and researcher assessments. The CUE diary method was found to detect behaviors earlier and with greater sensitivity to individual differences. The CUE diary method is shown to be a reliable methodological tool for studying processes of change in human development.
This paper examines the concept of wrongness as a violation of intention, convention, or fact. We... more This paper examines the concept of wrongness as a violation of intention, convention, or fact. We demonstrate that wrongness is an underlying factor in mistakes, jokes, pretense, lying, metaphor, and irony. We argue that children's use and understanding of wrongness evolves in four steps through a developing understanding of representation. First, children understand that a wrong act can refer to a right act, through mistakes and basic jokes. Second, this leads to understanding that a wrong act can represent a right act, ...
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Papers by Merideth Gattis