Papers by Gabriela Markova
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Infant Behavior & Development, May 1, 2019
The aim of the present research was to investigate the relationship between oxytocin and maternal... more The aim of the present research was to investigate the relationship between oxytocin and maternal affect attunement, as well as the role of affect attunement in the relationship between oxytocin and infant social engagement during early mother-infant interactions. Forty-three mother-infant dyads participated in the present study when infants were 4 months. They were observed during (1) a situation where no communication took place and (2) a natural interaction between mother and infant. During this procedure, three saliva samples from mothers and their infants were collected to determine their levels of oxytocin at different time points. Maternal affect attunement (maintaining attention, warm sensitivity) and infant interactive behaviors (gaze, positive, and negative affect) were coded during the natural interaction. Results indicated that overall maternal oxytocin functioning was negatively related to her warm sensitivity, while infant oxytocin reactivity together with maternal affect attunement were associated with infant positive social engagement with their mothers. Specifically, infant oxytocin reactivity was significantly related to their gazes at mother, but only for infants of highly attuned mothers. These results point to the complex role oxytocin plays in parent-infant interactions while emphasizing the need to analyze both overall oxytocin functioning as well as reactivity as different indices of human affiliative behavior. 1. Introduction Early interactions between infants and their caregivers are the foundation of infants' socio-cognitive development. While the basic structure of these interactions is universal, their quality is subject to large variations across the population (Sroufe, 2005). For example, the extent to which mothers are sensitive and can tune into infant social behaviors (i.e., maternal affect attunement) influences infant social and interactive skills (e.g.
Frontiers in Psychology, Jun 25, 2018
The present study examined early social game routines during natural face-to-face mother-infant i... more The present study examined early social game routines during natural face-to-face mother-infant interactions and their relationship with oxytocin. Forty-three mother-infant dyads were observed, when infants were 4 months old, during a procedure involving a baseline and a natural interaction, where mothers were instructed to interact with their infants as they would at home. During this procedure four saliva samples from mothers and infants were collected to determine levels of oxytocin at different time points. Social game routines and infant social engagement (gaze, positive, and negative affect) were coded during the natural interaction. Social games were observed in 76.7% of the mother-infant dyads, and 46 different types of games were identified. Mothers initiated games to re-engage infants significantly more often than when infants were already engaged with them. During the games, infants showed more positive affect and less negative affect in comparison to the rest of the interaction. Finally, maternal increase in oxytocin from before to after the natural interaction was positively correlated with game rate and time spent in games, while infant increase in oxytocin from before to after the natural interaction was inversely related to game rate. These results indicate that social games are an inherent part of early mother-infant interactions, and their occurrence is associated with oxytocin of both infants and mothers.
PLOS Biology, Dec 13, 2018
Infants' cognitive development and learning rely profoundly on their interactions with other peop... more Infants' cognitive development and learning rely profoundly on their interactions with other people. In the first year, infants become increasingly sensitive to others' gaze and use it to focus their own attention on relevant visual input. However, infants are not passive observers in early social interactions, and these exchanges are characterized by high levels of contingency and reciprocity. Wass and colleagues offer first insights into the neurobehavioral dynamics of caregiver-infant interactions, demonstrating that caregivers' scalp-recorded theta band activity responds to their infant's changes in attention, and parental brain activation is associated with infants' sustenance of attention. This research opens up entirely new ways of exploring caregiver-infant interactions and to understand early social attention as a reciprocal and dynamic process.
Infant Behavior & Development, May 1, 2007
In two studies, 3-, 6-and 9-month-old infants interacted with their mothers during natural, still... more In two studies, 3-, 6-and 9-month-old infants interacted with their mothers during natural, still-face, and modified still-face (i.e., mothers wearing a mask, or drinking from bottle) conditions. Infants were also presented with matching doll conditions to control for the possibility that their responses might be due to changes in superficial perceptual features. Regardless of age, infants displayed negative affect to the still-face, but, in contrast to recent reports, not to the modified still-face conditions. However, whereas infants' positive affect also depended on their mothers' communicative intentions, these responses changed with cognitive maturation. As expected, infant responses to their mothers were significantly different from those to the doll. The implications of these findings for theories of communication are discussed.
Frontiers in Public Health, Apr 20, 2021
In the present study we examined the positive effects of a healthcare clown intervention on child... more In the present study we examined the positive effects of a healthcare clown intervention on children undergoing surgeries, and the role parent-child relationships may play in their effectiveness. Children between 5 and 12 years, who were scheduled to undergo elective surgical procedures in a large university hospital, were randomly assigned to an intervention group (IG; n = 35) that was visited by a healthcare clown, and a control group (CG; n = 27) that received treatment as usual (i.e., company of parents before the surgery). Children in both groups were videotaped and the videos were later used to rate their activity, arousal, emotional expressivity, and vocalizations. Additionally, children and parents rated their mood and perceived quality of life at several points during the procedure, and parents reported their perceptions of the relationship with their children. Results showed that children in the IG showed more positive emotions and vocalizations than children in the CG. Parents of children in the IG also reported more positive mood than parents of children in the CG. In contrast, children in the CG reported higher quality of life than children in the IG. Importantly, analyses showed considerable effects of the parent-child relationship on all outcome measures. Results of the present study demonstrate that a healthcare clown intervention had some positive effects on behaviors and mood of hospitalized children and their parents. Importantly, our findings also suggest that we need to consider the pre-existing "relationship microcosmos" that the clowns enter when assessing their effectiveness in the hospital.
Social Development, Jun 26, 2013
ABSTRACT The present studies examined the relationship between children&amp;#39;s use of gram... more ABSTRACT The present studies examined the relationship between children&amp;#39;s use of grammatical structures indicating self–other differentiation (i.e., personal pronouns, verb conjugation) and their ability to use language to express their own and others&amp;#39; mental states (MSL). In Study 1, 104 parents of two- to three-year-old children filled out online checklists assessing children&amp;#39;s vocabulary, their use of MSL, and first- and second-person pronouns and verb forms. In Study 2, 77 mothers of 1.5- to 2.5-year-old children filled out the MacArthur–Bates communicative development inventory, and additional checklists for MSL and verb conjugation. Results of both studies showed that children&amp;#39;s use of grammatical person reference is strongly related to their level of grammatical abilities. Importantly, pronominal and inflectional references to others were correlated with children&amp;#39;s discourse about the mind. Thus, linguistic tools that are used to distinguish self from others are not only indicators of children&amp;#39;s grammatical development, but also their level of sociocognitive understanding.
Frontiers in Psychology, Sep 18, 2019
Social interactions are essential for understanding others' actions and their mental and affectiv... more Social interactions are essential for understanding others' actions and their mental and affective states. Specifically, interpersonal coordination-also referred to as synchrony-allows actors to adjust their behaviors to one another and thus demonstrate their connectedness to each other. Much behavioral research has demonstrated the primacy of mutually synchronized social exchanges in early development. Additionally, new methodological advances now allow us to examine interpersonal synchrony not only at the behavioral and physiological but also neural level. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how infants and their caregivers actually achieve interpersonal synchrony in their exchanges. Here we discuss recent evidence showing that adults provide rhythmical information during early social interactions with their infants, such as affective touch and singing. We propose that entrainment to these social rhythms underlies the formation of interpersonal synchrony and thus stimulates reciprocal interactions between infants and their caregivers.
Infant Behavior & Development, May 1, 2007
The influence of maternal affect attunement on the relationship between gaze monitoring during dy... more The influence of maternal affect attunement on the relationship between gaze monitoring during dyadic communication at 3 months and coordinated attention during triadic communication at 5, 7 and 10 months was examined in a longitudinal study. Although most infants engaged in gaze monitoring at 3 months and in coordinated attention at 5, 7 and 10 months, a regression analysis revealed that gaze monitoring at 3 months significantly predicted coordinated attention at 10 months only when maternal affect attunement was high. These findings are discussed in terms of theories that emphasize the role of social interaction in the development of meaningful communication and continuity in mental state awareness during the first year of life.
Frontiers in Psychology, Jan 11, 2022
Online data collection with infants raises special opportunities and challenges for developmental... more Online data collection with infants raises special opportunities and challenges for developmental research. One of the most prevalent methods in infancy research is eye-tracking, which has been widely applied in laboratory settings to assess cognitive development. Technological advances now allow conducting eye-tracking online with various populations, including infants. However, the accuracy and reliability of online infant eye-tracking remain to be comprehensively evaluated. No research to date has directly compared webcam-based and in-lab eye-tracking data from infants, similarly to data from adults. The present study provides a direct comparison of in-lab and webcambased eye-tracking data from infants who completed an identical looking time paradigm in two different settings (in the laboratory or online at home). We assessed 4-6-monthold infants (n = 38) in an eye-tracking task that measured the detection of audiovisual asynchrony. Webcam-based and in-lab eye-tracking data were compared on eyetracking and video data quality, infants' viewing behavior, and experimental effects. Results revealed no differences between the in-lab and online setting in the frequency of technical issues and participant attrition rates. Video data quality was comparable between settings in terms of completeness and brightness, despite lower frame rate and resolution online. Eye-tracking data quality was higher in the laboratory than online, except in case of relative sample loss. Gaze data quantity recorded by eye-tracking was significantly lower than by video in both settings. In valid trials, eye-tracking and video data captured infants' viewing behavior uniformly, irrespective of setting. Despite the common challenges of infant eye-tracking across experimental settings, our results point toward the necessity to further improve the precision of online eye-tracking with infants. Taken together, online eye-tracking is a promising tool to assess infants' gaze behavior but requires careful data quality control. The demographic composition of both samples differed from the generic population on caregiver education: our samples comprised caregivers with higher-than-average education levels, challenging the notion that online studies will per se reach more diverse populations.
The present study examined the role of interpersonal synchrony between mothers and their 4-month-... more The present study examined the role of interpersonal synchrony between mothers and their 4-month-old infants (N = 40) in infant responses to a modified interaction where mothers continually looked and verbalised towards but did not engage with their children. During a natural interaction we observed behavioural synchrony and for a subsample of infants (n = 20) measured change in their salivary oxytocin from before to after the interaction. During the modified interaction we observed infant gaze, positive, and negative affect. We found that higher interpersonal synchrony was related to longer infants’ social gaze and shorter displays of negative affect during the modified interaction. Increase in infant oxytocin was also associated with longer gaze, but also longer negative and shorter positive affect during the modified interaction. Our results show that interpersonal synchrony allows infants to notice changes in interactions with others, but also helps them to regulate their emotions during such modified exchanges. These findings thus indicate the importance of synchrony experiences with caregivers for the development of early regulatory capacities.
Cognitive Development, Apr 1, 2015
Abstract In a cross-sectional study we investigated children's pretense and imitation of pret... more Abstract In a cross-sectional study we investigated children's pretense and imitation of pretense at 12, 15, and 18 months of age during natural play and pretend play with their mothers and during imitation and causal transformation tasks with an experimenter. Maternal pretense, imitation of pretense, and verbalizations were also coded during mother–child interactions. Results showed that the frequency of child pretense increased with age across all conditions. Child imitation of pretense remained consistent in all age groups during interactions with mothers, while it peaked at 15 months and then decreased during pretense tasks with the experimenter. Children also engaged in more imitation with mothers during pretend play than during natural play. Additionally, maternal pretense predicted child imitation whereas maternal imitation and verbalizations predicted child pretense. These findings indicate that specific maternal behaviors scaffold pretense and facilitate imitation of pretense in very young children.
Infant and Child Development, 2013
Infant-directed singing has unique acoustic characteristics that may allow even very young infant... more Infant-directed singing has unique acoustic characteristics that may allow even very young infants to respond to the rhythms carried through the caregiver’s voice. The goal of this study was to examine neural and movement responses to live and dynamic maternal singing in 7-month-old infants and their relation to linguistic development. In total, 60 mother-infant dyads were observed during two singing conditions (playsong and lullaby). In Study 1 (n= 30), we measured infant EEG and used an encoding approach utilizing ridge regressions to measure neural tracking. In Study 2 (n= 40), we coded infant rhythmic movements. In both studies, we assessed children’s vocabulary when they were 20 months old. In Study 1, we found above-threshold neural tracking of maternal singing, with superior tracking of lullabies than playsongs. We also found that the acoustic features of infant-directed singing modulated tracking. In Study 2, infants showed more rhythmic movement to playsongs than lullabies....
European Journal of Developmental Psychology, Nov 1, 2012
Previous research has shown that adults scaffold and direct early infant social pretend play maki... more Previous research has shown that adults scaffold and direct early infant social pretend play making it difficult to establish infants&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; own contribution to pretence. To examine infants&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; social pretence abilities the present study compared infants&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; social pretend play in interactions with adults and same-age peers, who have similar socio-cognitive competence. Forty-five 15-month-old infants were observed during free-play interactions with their
Frontiers in Psychology, 2018
The present study examined early social game routines during natural face-to-face mother-infant i... more The present study examined early social game routines during natural face-to-face mother-infant interactions and their relationship with oxytocin. Forty-three mother-infant dyads were observed, when infants were 4 months old, during a procedure involving a baseline and a natural interaction, where mothers were instructed to interact with their infants as they would at home. During this procedure four saliva samples from mothers and infants were collected to determine levels of oxytocin at different time points. Social game routines and infant social engagement (gaze, positive, and negative affect) were coded during the natural interaction. Social games were observed in 76.7% of the mother-infant dyads, and 46 different types of games were identified. Mothers initiated games to re-engage infants significantly more often than when infants were already engaged with them. During the games, infants showed more positive affect and less negative affect in comparison to the rest of the interaction. Finally, maternal increase in oxytocin from before to after the natural interaction was positively correlated with game rate and time spent in games, while infant increase in oxytocin from before to after the natural interaction was inversely related to game rate. These results indicate that social games are an inherent part of early mother-infant interactions, and their occurrence is associated with oxytocin of both infants and mothers.
Cognitive Development, 2015
Abstract In a cross-sectional study we investigated children's pretense and imitation of pret... more Abstract In a cross-sectional study we investigated children's pretense and imitation of pretense at 12, 15, and 18 months of age during natural play and pretend play with their mothers and during imitation and causal transformation tasks with an experimenter. Maternal pretense, imitation of pretense, and verbalizations were also coded during mother–child interactions. Results showed that the frequency of child pretense increased with age across all conditions. Child imitation of pretense remained consistent in all age groups during interactions with mothers, while it peaked at 15 months and then decreased during pretense tasks with the experimenter. Children also engaged in more imitation with mothers during pretend play than during natural play. Additionally, maternal pretense predicted child imitation whereas maternal imitation and verbalizations predicted child pretense. These findings indicate that specific maternal behaviors scaffold pretense and facilitate imitation of pretense in very young children.
Infant and Child Development, 2013
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Papers by Gabriela Markova