At Approximately What Age Does a Baby Begin to Demonstrate Social Referencing

Infant Behav Dev. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 November one.

Published in last edited form every bit:

PMCID: PMC4262602

NIHMSID: NIHMS612849

Social Looking, Social Referencing and Humor Perception in 6-and-12-month-old Infants

Gina C. Mireault

Johnson State Higher, Johnson, Vermont

Susan C. Crockenberg

University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont

John Due east. Sparrow

Academy of New Hampshire-Manchester, Manchester, New Hampshire

Christine A. Pettinato

Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont

Kelly C. Woodard

Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont

Kirsten Malzac

Johnson Land Higher, Johnson, Vermont

Abstract

Social referencing refers to infants' apply of caregivers every bit emotional referents in ambiguous situations (Walden, 1993). Studies of social referencing typically crave airing, thereby over-looking younger, not-convalescent infants (i.e., ≤ 8-mos) and resulting in a widespread supposition that young infants do not employ this strategy. Using a novel arroyo that does not require mobility, we found that when parents provided unsolicited affective cues during an cryptic-absurd (i.e., humorous) event, 6-month-olds utilise ane component of social referencing, social looking Additionally, 6-month-olds who did not laugh at the event were significantly more likely to await toward parents than their counterparts who found the event funny. Sequential analyses revealed that, following a reference to a grinning parent, 6-calendar month olds were more than probable to grinning at the parent, merely by 12 months were more probable to smile at the issue suggesting that older infants are influenced by parental impact in humorous situations. The developmental implications of these findings are discussed, as well as the usefulness of studying humor for understanding important developmental phenomena.

Keywords: social referencing, humor, infancy, emotion regulation, social development

Although most infants begin to laugh by 4 months of age, little is known near how or why they translate a stimulus equally humorous. 1 possibility is that infants rely on emotional cues from others when confronted with absurd events that are initially cryptic to them. This miracle is broadly referred to as social referencing (SR) and has been clearly observed in infants in the second part of the commencement yr (Walden, 1993) when they are confronted with an cryptic, but potentially threatening stimulus like a visual cliff. In this report, we investigated SR longitudinally from 6- to 12-months examining: 1) if infants utilize SR by the end of the first half of the first year; and ii) if younger and older infants utilize SR in ambiguous-absurd situations. Our goal was to track the emergence of SR and its components equally it develops in the context of social engagement (Stack & Lewis, 2008).

In the classic sense, SR involves three sequential components: the infant actively seeks some other person's affective appraisal of a stimulus, that private provides a clear affective bulletin most the stimulus, and the infant regulates his/her touch and beliefs toward the upshot to align with that message (Rosen, Adamson, & Bakeman, 1992). Walden (1993) describes SR equally a simple but powerful strategy used especially past pre-verbal infants who must rely on others' cues to cocky-regulate in a variety of novel situations. Every bit "universal novices" (p. 188) most situations are new to infants and they must decide how to respond (Walden, 1993). According to Campos (1983), SR is a biologically organized process that has the value of communicating of import emotional letters (e.thou., threat and joy) in situations of uncertainty. Numerous studies with infants prove "clear, pervasive, and appreciable" (p. 84) effects on infants' affect communicated cross-modally via others' facial, vocal, and gestural cues (Vaish & Striano, 2004), a back-up that, according to Campos (1983), suggests fundamental significance for adaptation whereby the naïve infant learns vicariously via others' affect.

Despite acknowledging the importance of SR to infant social-emotional development, most research has ignored infants younger than 8 months of age. Except for a few studies (e.g., Devouche, 2004; Feinman & Lewis, 1983), SR enquiry protocols accept primarily relied on mobility as a dependent variable to appraise the influence of SR on infants' behavioral decisions (east.grand., whether to approach a threatening stimulus like a visual cliff or caged rabbit), therefore requiring older infants who are mobile. It is clear that infants use SR past the end of the start yr (Walden & Baxter, 1989). However, infants younger than 6-months showroom several skills (east.g., detection and discrimination of emotional expressions in visual and vocal modalities, coordination of gaze-following and touch) consistent with an earlier-than-expected emergence of social referencing (Vaillant-Molina & Bahrick, 2012). Recent investigations using eye-tracking technologies accept begun to demonstrate that 6-calendar month-old infants look at adults for information and that 9-month-olds' looking behavior tin be influenced past an experimenter's behavior (Senju, Csibra, & Johnson, 2008). These findings suggest that SR is a developmental possibility in young infants. Components or precursors of SR (due east.g., social looking) may emerge earlier in the first year earlier converging into classic SR by viii months. Additionally, young infants may use unsolicited parental affect to appraise events, and may come to empathize that caregivers are sources of affective information about events.

Furthermore, Nishida and Lillard (2007) bespeak out that SR enquiry employs strange or confusing situations (due east.g., visual cliff, confronting a stranger), and suggest that researchers should investigate whether SR is used in "situations that are not entirely novel and ambiguous, merely slightly 'out-of-the-ordinary'" (p.206). For instance, although numerous studies have shown that infants employ SR to interpret ambiguity as threatening, none take examined whether they use information technology to interpret ambivalence as humorous. Taken together two gaps exist in the SR research: first, whether younger, non-ambulatory infants also engage in SR when confronting ambiguity; and second, whether SR is employed in situations that present a lower threshold of ambiguity, such every bit those involving humor.

Infant sense of humor development itself is a little-understood process. Sense of humor generally refers to the perception, expression, and creation of amusement, and has been understood from a social theoretical perspective as a fundamentally interpersonal experience (Provine & Fischer, 1989; Reddy, 2008), and from a cognitive framework every bit recognition of incongruity (Rothbart, 1973). In infants, humor perception is most apparent in grin and laughing, universal behaviors that appear very early from 0-6 weeks and iii-iv months, respectively (Ruch & Ekman, 2001; Wolff, 1963). Humor involves the complex convergence of neural (Wild, Rhodden, Grodd, & Ruch, 2003), cognitive (Forabosco, 1992), behavioral (Lockard, Fahrenbruch, Smith, & Morgan, 1977), emotional (Panksepp, 2005), and social (Chapman, 1983) responses. However, infants testify a high capacity for sense of humour, laughter, and play in the starting time year of life (Colina, 1996). For example, babies between seven and 12 months of historic period laugh in response to the incongruous pairings of familiar materials and actions (Loizou, 2005), like putting a bowl on one's head. Infants this historic period besides attempt to elicit laughter in others and effort to maintain humorous interactions that are in progress (Loizou, 2005). These observations of infant humor have implications for understanding theory of mind (Hoicka & Akhtar, 2011; Hoicka & Gattis, 2008; Reddy, 2008), attachment (Mireault, Sparrow, Poutre, Perdue, & Macke, 2012), and spectrum disorders (Reddy, Williams, & Vaughan 2002). For example, Reddy (2001) reports that viii- to 11-month-olds engage in simple teasing like offer and withdrawing an object, an early class of deception and an indication that infants may concur more understanding of others' minds than is typically assumed. Thus, studying humor can help provide a developmental business relationship of early on social understanding (Stack & Lewis, 2008).

The scant research on baby humor from an interpersonal perspective suggests that humor emerges in – and in fact, requires - the important interpersonal contexts of infancy (Loizou, 2005). In these contexts infants may come up to rely on others' affective cues to interpret an cryptic event equally humorous. In fact, Reddy (2008) argues that fifty-fifty the earliest consequent stimulus of laughter in babies – tickling – requires a "social wrapping" (p. 201) to define it every bit funny. In support of this, Mireault, Poutre, Sargent-Hier, Dias, Perdue, and Myrick (2012) found that parents consistently used cues of smiling and laughter when engaging in absurd actions (i.e., odd faces and voices) with their 3- to half dozen-calendar month-old infants, which may explain why these absurdities were non perceived every bit threatening and why they became more than humorous to babies over fourth dimension. Similarly, Hoicka & Gattis (2012) report that acoustic cues aid listeners distinguish betwixt humorous and other types of communication and, when paired with laughing and smiling, may contribute to humor perception.

Although Mireault et al. (2012) did not directly investigate the role of SR in infants' perception of sense of humor, information technology is possible that parental affect is influential in these exchanges, at least inadvertently. Consistent with this, Campos (1983) noted that melancholia communication can be imposed on others, and Walden (1993) reports that although younger infants may non intentionally refer to their parents to interpret cryptic situations, parents provide these emotional messages anyway, and infants tend to match their affect as a result. In addition, although their study employed older infants, Nishida and Lillard (2007) demonstrated that 18-calendar month-olds apply their mothers every bit a social referent to empathize pretend play, a state of affairs that is closer to humor than threat.

The purpose of the present written report was to examine whether young infants employ social referencing to interpret an cryptic event as humorous and to track the emergence of SR longitudinally from 6- to 12-months with regard to sense of humor perception. 30 6-calendar month-old infants were videoed at home while they watched a researcher present i of their parents with ordinary and cryptic-absurd events, during which parents' affective cues were manipulated (neutral or laughing) in a within-subjects counter-balanced design, a procedure that was repeated when infants were 12 months old. We made the following predictions: i) infants at both ages would distinguish ordinary from absurd events, 2) infants at both ages would not observe an event humorous (i.e., smile/laugh at the absurd event) unless the event was accompanied past parental affective humour cues, 3) infants would reference the parent more than often during absurd vs. ordinary events, especially at 6-months, as those events should be more than cryptic for younger infants, and iv) at both ages infants' would showroom classic social referencing(i.east., their smiles and gazes at the event would be more likely to sequentially follow their references to parents' smiles.

1.1 Method

1.1.1 Participants

Thirty infant-parent dyads participated at 6- and again at 12-months of age. Infants (sixteen males, 14 females) had at least one older sibling (north=xx). Most participating parents were mothers (n=28). Parents of infants tended to exist married (n=28) with mothers ranging from 25 to 43 years (Grand=33.40, SD=5.33) and fathers from 24 to 51 years (M=35.33, SD=6.54). Most infants' mothers (n=21) and fathers (due north=28) worked fulltime hours (One thousand _M=36.07, SD _M=x.59; M _F=42.86, SD _F=eight.ninety), with combined annual incomes ranging widely from $7,300 to $250,000 (M=$85,643, SD=$45,976). Parental teaching ranged from 12 to twenty years for mothers (M=xvi.45, SD=1.87) and ten to 23 years for fathers (Thousand=sixteen.57, SD=2.73).

1.1.2 Appliance

Two ordinary items likely to be familiar to 6-month-olds were selected: a vinyl picture book and a cherry foam ball (i.5" in bore). These materials were used as intended for the ordinary events and in novel and potentially amusing ways for the cryptic-absurd events. No other materials were used in the procedure.

1.ane.three Measures

Two teams of trained research assistants worked in dyads to code discrete, non-overlapping infant behaviors from the videoed experimental process. Frequency and duration (in seconds) of each behavior were measured, and proportions were calculated to control for variability in length of exposure to the event (i.e., because of human mistake, the researcher sometimes performed the event for slightly more or less than 45 seconds). Inter-rater reliability based on a random choice of 25% of the videos across behaviors and ages ranged from .73 to .94.

Grin and laughing

Positive affect was defined as grin and/or laughing. Due to the low frequency of laughter in this small sample of behavior, likewise as their non-mutual exclusivity; smiling and laughter were collapsed into a single category and coded specific to its target: at parent, at event, or while looking abroad. Grin/laughing were likely of low frequency due to the curt duration of the experimental conditions (45 seconds) and the fact that the infant, despite being in a familiar environment, still had to accommodate to the novelty of the experimenter and state of affairs.

Social looking and social referencing

In accord with studies on this phenomenon (Nishida & Lillard, 2007; Sorce et al., 1985; Vaish & Striano, 2004), social looking was divers equally infants' looks towards the parent. If infants were smile during the look, and so this beliefs was coded every bit "baby smiles at parent" instead of social looking. This was washed in lodge to preserve the discrete categories of behaviors and to exist able to analyze the target of infant smiling/laughing in add-on to the frequency and duration of smiling. Smiling at the parent was as well differentiated from looking at the parent, every bit the one-time is both affective and behavioral, whereas the latter is behavioral. Social looking is differentiated from social referencing (SR) in that the latter involves a change in the infant'south behavior or bear on consequent with and subsequent to a social look to the parent's affective message. Social looking is also not necessarily in itself a solicitation of information. Thus, SR was examined as a classic sequence of behaviors consistent with previous studies (due east.thousand., Rosen at al., 1992): 1) babe gazes at event, 2) infant looks at parent, who is neutral or smiling, 3) infant gazes back at the event (if parent is neutral) or smiles at the event (if parent is smiling).

Gazes at event

Gazes were coded when infants' eyes were directed at the experimental event in the absence of infant grinning. If the infant smiled while gazing, this was coded as "smiles at event". Once again, this was to preserve the discrete nature of the behaviors and to be able to analyze the target of infants' smiles and gazes. The experimenter presented the events, therefore gazes at the experimenter were coded as gazes at the consequence.

Look away

When infants averted their gaze from the event, regardless of the subsequent direction of their gaze (unless it was toward the parent, which was coded as a social look), it was coded as "look abroad". Expect abroad was coded for frequency and duration, too every bit the length of time that elapsed (i.eastward., latency) before the infant looked away.

i.i.four Process

Flyers were mailed to parents whose names appeared in the birth announcements of v expanse newspapers. The flyer indicated that the study was exploring "how babies figure out what is funny." Interested parents called or eastward-mailed the PI who provided details almost the procedure and obtained informed consent. Eligibility criteria included total-term, singleton delivery, and living within a 50-mile radius of the enquiry site in 1 of three counties.

One week in advance of the experimental procedure, parents received a packet in the mail containing a demographic questionnaire, a copy of the informed consent, and $five.00 bounty. A researcher visited participants in their homes inside one week of infants' half-dozen-month birthdays. Infants were seated in a high chair between the researcher and the parent in a triangular configuration with approximately three anxiety between each member. This seating arrangement allowed the infant to see both the parent and the event presented by the researcher, and required infants to slightly plow their heads so that coding the target of infants' looking behavior was articulate. The parent and researcher sat directly opposite each other, and parents were instructed to look at and straight their affect toward the event, not at the infant, for the duration of the procedure. The effect of this configuration was to identify the infant in the role of observing the issue and the parent'southward reaction to it. A video photographic camera on a tripod was set up opposite the infant so that the complete triad could exist captured in the frame.

The researcher presented 3 events with each of two objects (ball and book) to parents while infants observed. Objects were initially presented as they are ordinarily used (i.eastward., the volume was read to the parent, the ball was tossed mitt to paw and described to the parent), and parents were instructed to act equally they usually would during these ordinary events. The objects were and then used to create ambiguous-cool events (i.e., the opened volume was repeatedly placed upside down on the researcher'south head while she said "joop joop"; the brawl was worn as a clown nose and poked with her finger while she said "beep beep"). Experimenters followed a standard script during the ordinary condition to maintain standardization of the procedure. For case, in the ordinary ball condition they manipulated the ball between their hands while repeating 3 times, "This is a ball. The ball is reddish. I can squish information technology. I tin can roll it. I tin toss it hand to hand." Ordinary and absurd events were designed to be as similar every bit possible with regard to length, script, vocal presentation, and movement. Experimenters remained affectively neutral beyond all three conditions, and looked exclusively at parents, not at infants. During the cryptic-absurd events parents were instructed to remain affectively expressionless with a neutral, "still face" (control condition) and to point and laugh at the event (cued status); these melancholia conditions were counterbalanced.

Our procedure differed from the classic SR paradigm in one of import mode: parental affective cues were not contingent upon infants' solicitation of affective information. Instead, we examined whether infants are influenced by unsolicited parental bear on nether weather condition of sense of humour. Our decision to deviate from the classic SR image was based on the post-obit reasons: 1) We were concerned nigh the developmental and methodological sensitivity of studying non-ambulatory 6-month-olds using a process designed for ambulatory eight-to-12-month-olds; ii) our process was necessarily brief given the attending-bridge of such immature infants, such that waiting for them to solicit affective information would potentially undermine the entirety of the procedure; and three) we wanted to employ a more externally valid process. Thus we were guided by Campos' (1983) finding that affect can be imposed on others and past Walden'southward (1993) observation that parents tend to provide unsolicited emotional information that influences infants' responses. Similarly, Mireault et al. (2012) establish that in naturally occurring humorous exchanges, parents smile and express joy in conjunction with absurd behavior (clowning). For these reasons, we designed a procedure that would allow united states to determine if parental bear upon influenced young infants' response toward an absurd event.

Several investigators (Campos, 1983; Kim, Walden, & Knieps, 2010) have suggested that the melancholia communication involved in social referencing involves facial, vocal, and gestural cues, and Vaillant-Molina and Bahrick (2011) found that this "intersensory back-up" (p. 7) was required for 5½ month-olds to detect a human relationship betwixt an adult's affective display and a corresponding toy. Thus, parents were instructed to apply facial, vocal, and gestural cues in the cued condition and to deliver these cues continuously to insure that parents' emotional bulletin about the issue were obvious to these immature infants. Parents were provided with examples of what they could say (e.chiliad., "That is then silly!" "Isn't that funny!"), just were allowed to deviate from the script as long equally they did not instruct the babe on what to do (e.g., "Go the ball!") nor touch the infant or the object. Parents occasionally glanced at their infants, but, as instructed, parental bear on was directed at the event, not at the infant, to avert the possibility of babe distress in the neutral face condition.

Thus there were three conditions (ordinary, ambiguous-absurd with neutral/no affective cues, and ambiguous-cool with smiling/laughing affective cues) for each of two objects (volume and ball). All half dozen events were timed to concluding approximately 45 seconds in duration (M = 38.2, SD = eight.2, Mdn = 40). Parents were compensated an additional $25.00 upon completion of the process, which was repeated when infants were 12-months-old, at which time parents were compensated an additional $forty.00. Two researchers conducted the experiment over the grade of the study, and typically the aforementioned researcher conducted the experiment on the same infants at 6- and 12-months. Similarly, the same parent participated at both time points.

1.one.5 Analyses

To reduce the number of comparisons in this pocket-sized sample, we combined dependent measures from both ordinary conditions, both ambiguous-cool neutral conditions, and both ambiguous-absurd cued conditions for all infant behaviors. Due to some variability in length of the events, raw frequencies and durations of behavioral measures were converted to proportions to standardize them for analyses. Paired sample t-tests were used to compute differences between the ordinary and cryptic-absurd (neutral) conditions in infants' latency to look abroad, smiling at the consequence, and social looking. Paired sample t-tests were also used to compare social looking and smiling/laughing between the ambiguous-absurd neutral and ambiguous-absurd cued conditions and between ages. Holm-Bonferroni corrections were used to maintain a family-wise error rate of .05 within each age grouping.

Finally, sequential analyses (using GSEQ; Bakeman & Quera, 1995; 2011) were used to see if a sequence consistent with SR occurred. Sequential analyses (using GSEQ; Bakeman & Quera, 1995; 2011) examined the extent to which babe bear on (smiling/laughing) and visual approach (i.east., gazing back at the effect) was contingent upon parental bear upon (smiling/laughing vs. neutral). If infants use social referencing to interpret ambivalence, then a sequence of behaviors consequent with SR should occur at college than gamble levels. The SR sequence was specified as follows: the experimenter presents the ambiguous event, the baby looks at the issue, the parent displays positive facial, gestural and vocal cues (or neutrality, equally appropriate to the condition), the infant looks at the parent, the infant smiles/laughs and/or gazes back at the upshot. GSEQ computes frequencies of the specified sequences and estimates expected frequencies for each sequence based on the number of occurrences of each behavior within the data set; sequences with normally occurring behaviors take higher expected frequencies than sequences with unusual behaviors. Chi-foursquare assay was then used to compare expected to observed frequencies of behaviors (Nishida & Lillard, 2007).

1.2 Results

Grouping comparisons

Every bit expected, half dozen-calendar month-old infants took significantly longer to await away from ambiguous-cool versus ordinary events, indicating that they distinguished the two types of events (Oakes, 2010). This upshot was also found at 12-months, merely was negated subsequent to the Holm-Bonferroni aligning. Even so and contrary to the hypotheses, both 6- and 12-month-olds smiled longer at the event, and 12-month-olds also smiled more frequently at ambiguous-absurd than ordinary events, despite parental affective neutrality, indicating that both age groups did indeed distinguish between ordinary and absurd events and perceived them as humorous without affective guidance. Also unexpected, six-month-olds smiled significantly more oft and longer at the absurd events when parents remained neutral instead of providing cues, just by 12-months there was no divergence in grinning betwixt the affective conditions. Similarly unexpected, infants at both ages failed to engage in more social looking during ambiguous-absurd versus ordinary events, meaning they were no more than likely to solicit information from their parents during these unusual events than during ordinary events, perhaps because they had disambiguated the events independently or considering they found both events novel given the involvement of a stranger or because parents refrained from ostensive cues (e.m., pointing) during both events. All the same, not all 6-month-olds institute the events amusing (northward=14), and this group of infants employed more than social looking (1000 =.15, SD = .17), appearing to solicit parental guidance, than their laughing counterparts (M = .05, SD = .07) who appeared to have resolved the ambiguity, t(26) = 2.sixteen, p <.05. Finally, when parents smiled and laughed during the ambiguous-absurd events, both 6- and 12-month-olds used more and longer social looking, but contrary to the prediction, 6-month-olds smiled significantly less at the event, both in elapsing and frequency, and by12-months exhibited no differences in smiling across weather condition. (See Table ane).

Table ane

Descriptive Statistics and t-Exam Analyses for 6- and 12-month-old Comparisons

	Historic period Tested

	vi months			12 months

DV	Thousand (SD)	t(28)	p	M (SD)	t(28)	p
Latency to look away
Ordinary	19.88(ten.17)			18.14(6.03)
Cool-neutral	28.64(11.93)	-3.06	.005^*	22.74(ten.47)	-two.29	.030
Smiles/Laughs: Frequency
Ordinary	.12(.thirteen)			.07(.xi)
Cool-neutral	.15(.17)	-1.xx	.240	.15(.15)	-3.04	.005^*
Smiles/Laughs: Duration
Ordinary	.05(.09)			.03(.04)
Absurd-neutral	.xiv(.20)	-2.81	.009^*	.18(.20)	-4.49	.001^*
Smiles/Laughs: Frequency
Cool-neutral	.xv(.17)			.15(.fifteen)
Absurd-cued	.09(.x)	3.18	.004^*	.14(.xiv)	.35	.730
Smiles/Laughs: Duration
Absurd-neutral	.xiv(.20)			.18(.20)
Cool-cued	.08(.13)	2.63	.014^*	.14(.xix)	.97	.341
Social Looking: Frequency
Ordinary	.xi(.xiii)			.13(.xv)
Absurd-neutral	.11(.14)	0.07	.942	.15(.13)	-.59	.560
Social Looking: Frequency
Cool-neutral	.11(.fourteen)			.15(.13)
Absurd-cued	.28(.13)	-5.60	.001^*	.24(.fourteen)	-three.75	.001^*
Social Looking: Duration
Absurd-neutral	.04(.06)			.06(.07)
Absurd-cued	.21(.17)	-5.71	.001^*	.xiv(.12)	-iv.03	.001^*

Sequential analysis

Sequential assay was conducted to explore sequences of parent-(i.e., affect or no affect) baby (i.e., smiling/laughing, gazing, and social referencing) behavior, illuminating the dynamic social interaction instead of static measures of specific behaviors whose sequence is unknown. In essence, sequential assay preserves the sequential nature of the information, which is assessed via follow-upward chi-foursquare inferential analyses and examination of adjusted residuals (Bakeman & Gottman, 1997; Bakeman & Quera, 2011). Infants' smiles were coded co-ordinate to their target (i.eastward., at issue, at parent as a social look, and/or while looking away) in each status. The predicted social referencing sequence was specified for the hypothesis, and GSEQ (Bakeman & Quera, 1995) was used to compute the joint frequency of the specified sequence and the expected frequency for that sequence based on the number of occurrences of each beliefs inside the data set. Chi-foursquare analysis was and then used to compare expected to observed frequencies of behaviors (Bakeman & Quera, 2011; Nishida & Lillard, 2007). We expected infants would use social referencing to interpret ambivalence as positive when cued past parents, consequent with the post-obit sequence: the experimenter presents the ambiguous-cool outcome, the parent exhibits positive facial, gestural and vocal cues, the baby looks at the parent, the infant exhibits positive affect toward the event or gazes back at the issue.

Sequential analyses revealed that infants at both 6- and 12-months were less likely to smile at the ambiguous-cool event subsequently looking at a smiling parent, with 6-month-olds more likely to smile at the parent and 12-month-olds less likely to do so. Figure 1 depicts the pattern of the adjusted residuals, which represent the degree to which the observed frequencies deviate from chance equally z-scores (Bakeman & Quera, 2011, pp. 109-110). The residuals assay indicates that infants at both ages were more likely to gaze at the absurd event afterwards observing their parents' smiling, laughter and pointing toward information technology, suggesting parental touch influenced infants' gaze behavior toward the event. Adding of odds ratios, however, indicated that these differences were not pregnant between the neutral and cued conditions for half dozen-month-olds (OR = .86, 95% CI [.44, 1.69], p > .05), and for 12-month-olds (OR = i.25, 95% CI [.60, ii.lx], p > .05), although the tendency is apparent. Tabular array 2 shows the individual results of the sequential analysis chi-squares for each of the issue types by age.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc. Object name is nihms612849f1.jpg

Adjusted residue analysis of smiling events post-obit social looking. The cherry lines correspond observed frequencies greater than or less than risk, respectively (p < .05). BSE = babe smiles at event; BSP = baby smiles at parent; SLA = baby smiles and looks away; BGE = baby gazes at event

Table 2

Sequential Analysis of Smiling & Gazing Event Frequencies Following Social Looking

	6 months				12 months

	O	E	χⁱⁱ	p	O	Due east	χⁱⁱ	p
Ordinary:
BSE	ane	3.68	11.46	0.02	0	2.46	22.72	< .01^†
BSP	ane	0.58			0	0.57
SLA	0	0.92			0	0.38
BGE	xviii	x.58			19	9.27
Absurd-Neutral:
BSE	2	10.51	29.01	< .01	2	8.seventy	32.96	< .01
BSP	4	2.55			1	3.79
SLA	1	iii.fifteen			0	1.68
BGE	33	17.72			33	16.14
Cool-Cued:
BSE	3	14.31	92.50	< .01	5	16.46	132.36	< .01
BSP	18	9.93			8	thirteen.81
SLA	3	4.38			1	ane.59
BGE	ninety	l.53			88	37.97

When all looks toward the parent (i.eastward., "social looking" and "infant smiles at parent") were collapsed into a single category, parental affect was shown to influence baby affect toward the event. Specifically, when 12-calendar month-olds were compared across conditions, they were significantly more than likely to immediately and subsequently smile at the event later looking at a smiling vs. a neutral parent, an effect not observed for vi-month-olds (encounter Effigy 2). It is possible that, in the cued condition infants many have been smiling prior to looking at their smiling parent. All the same, the sequence was meaning by condition suggesting that at the very least parental affect influenced 12-month-olds to maintain positive affect toward the event.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc. Object name is nihms612849f2.jpg

Adapted residuum analysis of smiling events following whatever reference to the parent (i.east., Social Looking and/or Baby Smiles at Parent). The red lines represent observed frequencies greater than or less than run a risk, respectively (p < .05). BSE = baby smiles at event; SLA = babe smiles and looks away; BGE = infant gazes at upshot

1.three Discussion

Research has consistently shown that by the second one-half of the showtime year of life, infants rely on caregivers every bit emotional referents in cryptic situations (Walden, 1993), a phenomenon known as social referencing (SR). Since studies of SR typically require airing every bit function of the dependent measure, younger, non-convalescent infants (i.e., ≤ 8 mos) have been largely overlooked with the resulting assumption that they do non engage in SR. Our study deviated from archetype studies of SR in four important ways: first, we included 6-calendar month-old infants and followed them longitudinally to track the emergence of SR and its master component, social looking. Second, we used a protocol that does not crave mobility. 3rd, we employed ambiguous-absurd instead of cryptic-threatening events. Finally, our protocol deviated from classic SR studies in that we did not wait for infants to solicit melancholia information, but instead had parents provide unsolicited cues that included facial, vocal and gestural signals (Vaillant-Molina & Bahrick, 2011; Vaish & Striano, 2004) consequent with their natural behavior when engaging in cool behavior with infants (Mireault et al., 2012).

When parents provided unsolicited melancholia cues, infants at both ages exhibited more frequent and longer social looks toward parents, suggesting parental affect was a salient feature of the result even though infants did not actively solicit it. This combination of paying shut attending to cryptic-cool events and to others' affective expression toward those events might explain how infants come to see others every bit referents in ambiguous situations after on in development, so that by eight months of historic period they actively solicit emotional data from others and regulate accordingly. This is consistent with Walden'south (1993) assertion that although younger infants may not intentionally refer to their parents to interpret ambiguous situations, parents provide emotional messages anyway and infants tend to match their touch on equally a outcome.

In fact, sequential analyses of the data showed this very outcome for 6-month-olds. That is, following a social look to a smiling parent, 6-calendar month-olds were more than probable to grinning at the parent, although not at the event. The fact that infants in our study looked at parents more often and for longer when they provided positive melancholia cues essentially replicates Walden and Baxter'due south (1989) earlier finding. It appeared that parents' emotional cues became more than salient than the event itself and influenced 6-month-olds toward bear upon sharing, which is office of the social experience of humor. Information technology is important to notation that parents provided cantankerous-modal affective cues (i.e., facial, song, gestural) that they are likely to give under natural conditions, and that other researchers accept been found to exist necessary to find referencing in young infants (Vaillant-Molina & Bahrick, 2011). Consequently, infants' social looks may not have been attempts to gather information, but artifacts of parental ostensive cues.

By 12-months, parental affect had a different effect on infants, who were less likely to smile at the effect or the parent (See Figure 1) than when parents remained neutral. It is possible that parental impact distracted infants from the result, and/or that they relied upon the neutral experimenter for their melancholia interpretation. Stenberg (2009) plant that infants tend to look more toward an experimenter than a familiar caregiver, as though infants understand that the former has more expertise with regard to the novel state of affairs the experimenter is presenting. Similarly, center-tracking studies have shown that 9-month-olds' looking behavior can be influenced by an experimenter'southward beliefs (Senju et al., 2008). In this study, when both parent and experimenter were neutral, infants may have seen the lack of touch as office of the absurdity, or smiled and laughed to appoint either or both parties. In either case, this finding should be replicated prior to additional interpretation.

Social referencing, as described by Campos (1983) specifically includes the parent's impact condign contagious to the infant toward an ambiguous event. We did not detect this outcome, although we did observe some evidence for the emergence of SR in this young sample under atmospheric condition of humor. Importantly, we institute that half dozen-month-olds who did not laugh at the outcome engaged in significantly more social looking, suggesting that they may take been attempting to glean affective information about the result from their parents. In addition, sequential analysis revealed a non-significant tendency for the finding that parental bear upon influenced infant gazing behavior at both ages, such that infants' directed more gazes at the result subsequent to observing a parent smile and laugh at it. Although it is possible that parental gestures toward the event (i.e., pointing) were responsible for this trend. This supports the possibility of an early and more than subtle SR response among infants as young every bit 6-months, and is consistent with prior enquiry showing that v½-month-olds (Vaillant-Molina & Bahrick, 2012) and 6-month-olds (Walden & Baxter, 1989) were more than likely to affect a toy toward which an adult had expressed positive emotion. Still, when social looking was more broadly defined as whatsoever expect toward the parent, 12-calendar month-olds, only not 6-calendar month-olds, aligned their bear on toward the event with their parents' cues, an observation that is more consequent with classic SR. It is important to note that 12-calendar month-olds but demonstrated this result in the cued condition, meaning that even if they had been smiling when looking at the parent, they only smiled dorsum at the event when the parent was also smiling at it. This outcome may reflect affect sharing instead of information gathering by the infant, just the parent's bear upon clearly impacted the babe'due south likelihood to continue to interpret the absurd event as amusing.

We mostly found that six- and 12-month-olds did not use SR in the archetype sense in these situations, meaning they did not actively solicit affective data from their parents during the cryptic-absurd events. In that location are several explanations for this. First, infants at both ages establish the cryptic-absurd events amusing fifty-fifty when their parents provided no emotional cues, suggesting they did not need to use SR equally they had disambiguated the events independently. 2nd, Stenberg (2009) found that 12-month olds preferred to look to an experimenter rather than a parent for data about a novel event, which may explain their low likelihood of referring to parents. Third, the necessity of SR in cool situations may be lower than when an infant is faced with threat, an caption consistent with evolutionary theory and with the observation that fear cues hold more significant signal value (Walden, 1993).

The events employed in this study involved a social exchange wherein one person presented ordinary and cryptic-cool events to the infant's parent while the infant watched.

6- and 12-month-olds clearly distinguished ordinary from ambiguous-absurd events, with the onetime grouping taking longer to look away from information technology and both groups finding cool events more agreeable than ordinary ones. The tendency for infants to stare longer at novel, unexpected events is widely used by researchers as an indicator of infants' agreement of the concrete world (Colombo & Mitchell, 2009). Walden, Kim, McCoy, and Karrass (2007) propose that looking time is also an advisable dependent measure of infants' understanding of social events and is a ripe area for continued inquiry. It is possible that infants accept expectations of the social earth that when violated produce the absurd feel that underlies most sense of humor perception (Louizou, 2005). Interesting in itself is the finding that infants at both ages demonstrated more than mature humor perception than predicted, smiling at the absurd events regardless of parental impact and suggesting sophisticated radar for the absurd.

Although social referencing is a universal developmental miracle, the current study employed a fairly small and unrepresentative sample, included merely two cryptic-absurd and ordinary events, and used restrictive dependent measures of infant affect and behavior. Future enquiry should employ behavioral (e.chiliad., reaching toward or touching the objects used in the upshot or the person presenting them) and physiological (e.g., heart rate) measures in add-on to melancholia ones, particularly as smiling and laughing can be expected to occur at low frequency in the unusual context of a brief research study.

These findings brainstorm to illustrate the emergence of social referencing beginning at vi months of age. Six-month-olds who have non independently disambiguated an issue appear to engage in information-seeking references toward parents. In addition, regardless of whether they accept disambiguated an event, six-month-olds pay shut attention to unsolicited positive affective cues from parents. This information appears to influence infants in two ways. First, parents' positive emotion becomes contagious to the infants prompting them to smile more at parents, although not at the event. Second, parents' positive touch influences 12-calendar month-olds to smiling or continue smile at the outcome. Thus, the progression appears to exist from information-seeking and touch-sharing between infant-and-parent at 6-months, to articulation affect-sharing toward the event at 12-months.

Infants' emerging understanding of social ambiguities such as those involved in sense of humor is a unique and potentially rich direction for studying social, emotional, and cognitive development. Understanding how humour develops may shed calorie-free on important developmental milestones including social referencing.

Highlights

At both six- and 12-months, infants showed sophisticated humor perception, fifty-fifty when parents remained affectively neutral.
6-calendar month-olds who did not independently disambiguate an absurd event as humorous were more probable to employ social looks at parents.
12-month-olds connected to interpret an cool result as amusing just when their parents did as well.
half-dozen-month-olds attended to parental affect vs. events; this may explain how they somewhen perceive them every bit referents.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge Roger Bakeman, Ph.D. for his adept consultation on the sequential analysis.

Role of the Funding Source: This research was supported by a grant from the Vermont Genetics Network/NIH-INBRE #PHSP20RR16462. Please note that the Vermont Genetics Network had no role in the study design, nor in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, the writing of the written report, nor the decision to submit the article for publication.

Footnotes

Publisher'south Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early on version of the manuscript. The manuscript volition undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof earlier information technology is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that utilise to the journal pertain.

Contributor Information

Gina C. Mireault, Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont.

Susan C. Crockenberg, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont.

John Eastward. Sparrow, Academy of New Hampshire-Manchester, Manchester, New Hampshire.

Christine A. Pettinato, Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont.

Kelly C. Woodard, Johnson State Higher, Johnson, Vermont.

Kirsten Malzac, Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont.

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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4262602/