Emotional expressions during early infant – father

conversations

Theano KokkinakiUniversity of Crete, Rethymnon – Gallos, Crete, Greece

The present longitudinal and naturalistic study aimed to investigate fathers’and infants’ facial expressions of emotions during paternal infant-directedspeech. The microanalysis of infant and paternal facial expressions ofemotion in the course of the naturalistic interactions of 11 infant – fatherdyads, from the 2nd to the 6th month, provided evidence that: (a) fathersand infants match their emotional states and attune their emotionalintensity; (b) infants seem to match paternal facial emotional expressionsmore than vice versa; (c) the prevailing emotional states of each partnerremain constant in the beginning and at the end of speech; and (d) thedevelopmental trajectories of infant interest and paternal pleasure changesignificantly across the age range of 2 – 6 months and they seem to followsimilar courses. These results are interpreted within the frame of the theoryof innate intersubjectivity.

Keywords: Emotional matching; Emotional attunement; Facial expressions ofemotion; Infant – father interaction.

Correspondence should be addressed to Theano Kokkinaki, University of Crete,

Department of Psychology, 74 100 Rethymnon, Gallos, Crete, Greece.

E-mail: nina@psy.soc.uoc.gr

The data of the present study are derived from the PhD study of the researcher (Department

of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, under the supervision of Professor Colwyn

Trevarthen), for which ethical approval has been granted by the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh,

NHS Trust (8/95).

I gratefully acknowledge Professor Giannis Kugiumutzakis (University of Crete) and Dr

Tricia Striano (Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences) for their

assistance and invaluable advice, and Assistant Professor Vassilis Vasdekis (Athens University

of Economics and Business) for his comments on the statistical analysis of this article. Above

all, I am deeply indebted to the infants and their families for ‘‘sharing’’ their time, co-operation

and patience while participating in this study.

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY2009, 6 (6), 705–721

� 2008 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

http://www.psypress.com/edp DOI: 10.1080/17405620701848871

INTRODUCTION

The aim of the present longitudinal and naturalistic study was to analysefacial expressions of emotions of fathers and infants in the course ofspontaneous paternal infant-directed speech taking place in dyadic infant –father interactions during early infancy.

The temporal organization of dyadic emotional states in face-to-faceparent – infant interaction has been described through the application ofvarious terms that imply differences in conceptualizing how infantsexpress their understanding by engaging in reciprocal responses to theadult’s social signals (see also Muir, Lee, Hains, & Hains, 2005). In ‘‘co-regulated’’ mutual matching both partners are trying to match eachother, and since this happens in a continuous way, each partner ends uptrying to match an action that is partly the self’s and partly the other’sreflected back to the first (Fogel, 1993). The mutual and continuousnature of anticipatory action is reflected in the concept of ‘‘mutual co-ordination’’ (Beebe & Jaffe, 1992, cited by Fogel, 1993). ‘‘Mutualregulation’’ has been defined as the goal to achieve a joint regulation ofthe interaction with interactive behaviours, or the goal of achieving ajoint state of reciprocity. The quality of each partner’s display relative tothe quality of the other’s display is a measure of match existing betweentheir intentionality and affectivity. When synchronization is not achieved,there is a mismatching and lack of cyclic build-up of the behaviours intoa smooth flow of phases (Brazelton, Tronick, Adamson, Als, & Wise,1975; Weinberg, Tronick, Cohn, & Oslon, 1999). Lately, Tronick (2005)proposed that ‘‘dyadic states of consciousness’’—the successful regulationof meaning leading to the emergence of a mutually induced dyadic stateof meaning—and states of consciousness have an intensity and force. Theemotion brought into a state of consciousness may be one variableaffecting intensity. Dyadic states of consciousness with greater force andintensity are ones that assemble more private meaning from eachindividual into shared meanings. ‘‘Affect attunement’’ is a form ofmatching that excludes imitation, in which the referent for the match isnot the external action, but the presumed feeling state of the partner(Stern, Hofer, Haft, & Dore, 1985). ‘‘Intersubjectivity’’ is the process inwhich mental activity—including conscious awareness, motives, intentionsand emotions—is transferred between minds (Trevarthen, 1993a, 1993b,2005).

Limited evidence on the temporal organization of emotional states ininfant – father interactions come from comparisons with mother – infantinteraction—within different theoretical frames—and provides evidence ofdifferences and similarities in the intensity of dyadic mutual regulation(Kokkinaki, 2003; Yogman, 1982).

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In the present study we hypothesized that emotional co-ordination(emotional matching of dyadic facial expressions or emotional attunementof dyadic emotional intensity) between infants’ and fathers’ emotionalexpressions would be evident in the course of natural paternal infant-directed speech. This hypothesis is based on the well-documentedcommunicative function of infant-directed speech (Papousek, Papousek, &Bornstein, 1985; Trevarthen, 2005).

Studying facial expressions of emotions during spontaneous paternalinfant-directed speech is important due to the suggestion that infant’spreference for infant-directed speech cannot be explained solely by theinformation contained in pitch contours, since male and female speakers usedifferent features to convey the same affective messages to their infants(McCartney, 1997; Slaney & McRoberts, 2003).

METHOD

Recruitment and participants

After ethical approval had been obtained (see notes), participants wererecruited through the assistance of local obstetricians and paediatricians.Parents were informed of the procedure of the study and were asked to signthe consent form prior to video-recording. Visits to infants’ homes andvideo-recordings were scheduled at a time when the infants were reported bytheir mothers to be alert and playful and when the father was at home.

Eleven infant – father pairs (N¼ 22) participated in this study. Thefathers’ mean age was 33.63 years (SD¼ 5.69, range 27 – 47 years). All the 11infants (5 males and 6 females) were full-term and healthy. The infants’mean birth weight was 3568 g (SD¼ 487.479, range 2800 – 4250 g), and themean birth height was 52.22 cm (SD¼ 2.160, range 48 – 55 cm).

Procedure

Video-recordings were made at 15-day intervals, starting when the infantwas 2 months old until he/she was 6 months old. Each recording lasted 8 – 10minutes (8 minutes for the younger infants aged 2 to 4 months and 10minutes for the older infants aged 4.5 to 6 months). Over the course ofthe study, nine video-recordings were made for each infant. A total of 99video-recordings were made for the entire sample while the total duration ofvideo-recorded and analysed interactions was 880 minutes.

The only instruction given to the fathers was: ‘‘Play as you normally dowith your baby’’. The recordings took place in a room and a position chosenby the fathers prohibiting any third-party intervention. If the infant becamedistressed or either the father or the researcher considered that the visit

EMOTIONS DURING INFANT – FATHER CONVERSATIONS 707

should be postponed for some reason, it was rescheduled as soon as possiblethereafter. All recordings were made with a Panasonic NV-MS4 S-VHSHI-FI STEREO camera.

Coding

In order to micro-analyse the facial expressions of emotions of each andboth partners in the course of spontaneous paternal infant-directed speechin a reliable way, the flow of interaction had to be structured in a well-defined way. This was the reason that paternal infant-directed speech wasclassified into verbal expression categories and grouped into units andsubunits of analysis, independently of the fact that this categorization is notrelated to the research questions of this paper.

Paternal infant-directed speech was transcribed verbatim from the video-recording, verified against the original tapes, and categorized into thefollowing verbal expression categories:

1. Infant-focus paternal utterances, described the infant’s internal andexternal state and responded to the infant’s non-vocal cues.

2. Father-focus paternal utterances described the father’s ownbehaviour(s), desire(s) and presence.

3. Dyad-focus paternal utterances described the father’s attempt to: (a)communicate with the infant through vocal expression and/or verbalresponse; (b) describe the dyadic emotional/behavioural exchange;and (c) express ‘‘sharing’’ (through the use of ‘‘we’’) of behaviours/physiological states/body parts/gaze direction with the infant.

4. Other-focus paternal utterances described an external situation, anobject/toy or referred to a third person.

5. Nursery songs, repeated vocalization(s), sentence(s) and non-speechsound(s), non-responsive to infant cues, were analysed as separateno-focus categories.

This scheme adapted and extended certain parts of the categorization systemdeveloped by Murray and her colleagues (Murray & Trevarthen, 1986;Murray, Kempton, Woolgar, & Hooper, 1993) and by Butler, McMahonand Ungerer (2003).

Each of the above categories of paternal utterance and the pausesfollowing them were micro-analysed (to an accuracy of 1/25th of a second)in order to be grouped into units and subunits of analysis. The unit ofanalysis was defined as a temporal period, which began at the start of onepaternal verbal expression category and ended at its termination. Each unitof analysis contained one or more categories of verbal expression, that is,subunits of analysis, depending on the pause duration between these

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categories. In cases where the pause between two categories was shorter thanor equal to 2 seconds then these categories constituted part of the same unitof analysis and the transcription and analysis of paternal speech wascontinued within this unit of analysis. If the pause between two categorieswas longer than 2 seconds then a new unit of analysis began. The 2-secondpause has been judged adequate for the change of content of parentalutterances (Herrera, Reissland, & Shepherd, 2004).

Figure 1 shows an example of the categorization of paternal infant-directed speech into units and subunits of analysis, the accompanyingpaternal and infant facial expressions of emotions and emotional intensityfor each subunit of analysis, the elapsed time and the video duration in aneight digit number string (these eight digits are four pairs of numbersrepresenting the time in hours, minutes, seconds and frames in twenty fifthsof a second, which was then transformed into seconds).

In cases of infant physiological need (e.g., infant vomiting), micro-analysis was interrupted independently from the pause duration.

Paternal utterances that were either inaudible or unintelligible inmeaning, were excluded from the analysis, but this occurred rarely. Paternalwhispers were analysed given that they constitute 14.6% of paternalutterances in early infancy (Papousek et al., 1985), along with physiologicalsounds, since fathers respond often to these expressions by imitation(Kokkinaki, 1998) and verbal comments.

Within each subunit of analysis, the coding scheme described three maintypes of facial expressions with five subdivisions: happy (pleasure directed tothe partner, pleasure directed to the external world, interest directed to thepartner), neutral (neutral expression, interest directed to the external world),and sad; three qualities of valence (positive, neutral and negative); and fourcategories for the direction of intensity change (ascending, descending,stable and fluctuating).

The pleasure facial expression directed to the partner was coded when theeyes were open, focused and attentive to the partner or they conveyed brightand animated pleasure, the mouth was elongated, that is closed, slightlyopen or open in the horizontal plane, the corners of the mouth slightlypulled back and/or drawn upwards, the lips slightly or more distinctlystretched causing wrinkles on each side of the mouth and the cheeks wereslightly drawn upwards or raised.

Interest directed to the partner was defined according to eye contact, gaze ororientation to the other partner’s face or body.Whenone partnerwas gazing atthe other partner’s face or body, interest was signalled by an unsmiling face,with open eyes. The lips were usually open or at other times loosely closed.When the lips were open, the corners of the mouth were slightly downward,with the upper lip in a reversed-U shape, and the lower lip relaxed or slightlystretched. In addition to gaze behaviour, one or a combination of the following

EMOTIONS DURING INFANT – FATHER CONVERSATIONS 709

Figure

1.Microanalysisofpaternalandinfantfacialexpressionsofem

otionsduringunitsandsubunitsofpaternalinfant-directedspeech.

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facial or vocal expressions could occur: (a) raised eyebrows; (b) knittedeyebrows; (c) blinking; (d) cooing (for the infant) or other vocalizations (infant,father); or (e) pre-speech mouth movements (infant).

Neutral expression was identified when one subject was not alert whilehe/she was looking passively or orienting him/herself to own or partner’sbody. The expression should be one of an unsmiling face, with no signs ofbody movement, vocalization or intent to vocalize (pre-speech mouthmovements). In another situation, neutral was coded when the infantshowed signs of self-absorption (looking passively at own body/parts of thebody) or sleepiness (yawning, rubbing eyes).

Interest/Pleasure directed towards the inanimate world was identifiedwhen one partner showed signs of interest and/or pleasure addressed not tothe other partner, but to external objects.

Negative facial expression was signified by a furrowed brow (lines on theforehead), wrinkles around the eyes and the nose, tight and somewhatprotruded lips, mouth either open or closed, corners of the mouth slightlydownward or pulled downward while the infant was gazing at or away fromthe parent’s face or trunk. The denotation of the parent’s emotionalexpression as ‘‘negative’’ was extremely rare. This was signified in cases inwhich the parent showed signs of annoyance, which were expressed byverbalization rather than by facial expression.

Coding of the infant and paternal facial expressions of emotions wascontinuous, since the onset time in the expression of an emotion of one partnerwas also the offset time of the previous emotion of the same partner. In thecourse of one subunit of analysis in the flow of paternal speech, it was mostlikely for each partner to express more than one emotional state. In order toobtain a description of the change of intensity over time, each facial expressionwithin each category of emotional valence represented a symbol in thefollowing scale: (a) positive emotional valence consisted of pleasure directed tothe partner (þþþ), pleasure directed to the inanimateworld (þþ), and interestdirected to the partner (þ); (b) neutral emotional valence consisted of theneutral facial expression and interest directed to the external world (0); and (c)negative emotional valence consisted of the negative facial expression (7).

After the microanalysis of paternal and infant facial expressions ofemotions within each subunit of analysis, emotional matching andmismatching, or the sequential combination of them, were determined foreach subunit, according to the type and the sequence of facial expression ofboth partners within this subunit.

In the present study, emotional matching was coded when one partner (2)expressed the valence (positive, neutral, negative) of facial expression ofemotion of the other partner (1) before the first completed it, independentlyof the intensity of it (e.g., emotional matching of pleasure was coded whenfather expressed laughter while the infant expressed grin). The temporal

EMOTIONS DURING INFANT – FATHER CONVERSATIONS 711

organization of the emotional matching, within each subunit of analysis,showed the direction of it, that is, which partner expressed first an emotionthat was then expressed by the other partner. For example, infant emotionalmatching was coded when the father expressed pleasure in the course of onesubunit, while the infant, in the course of the same subunit, expressed self-absorption in the beginning, which was then changed to pleasure. It has tobe clarified that the termination of the facial expression of emotion of thesecond partner could occur either before or after the termination of thefacial expression of the first partner (Figures 2a, 2b, 3a and 3b).

In addition, when one subunit of analysis of paternal speech began andended, or just began, with emotional matching, the direction of it was notcoded since the matching was either simultaneous, or it had started duringthe previous pause of paternal speech.

Emotional mismatching was coded when one or other partner was notinterested in interacting with the other partner. In the first case, one partnerexpressed interest or pleasure to the partner, while the other was neutral ornegative in emotion. When neither partner was interested in communication,one partner was neutral in emotion while the other was negative.

The sequence of the above symbols for each partner in the course of eachsubunit of paternal infant-directed speech determined the direction identifiedfor the change of emotional intensity as follows: (a) Ascending was defined asa sequence in which the intensity of the last emotional state of one partner atthe end of the verbal expression category was higher in the scale than theintensity of the first emotional state of the same partner at the beginning ofthis category, e.g., when the infant changed from interest (þ) to pleasure(þþþ) directed to the partner; (b) Descending was defined as a sequence inwhich the intensity of the last emotional state of one partner at the end of thecategory was lower in the scale than the intensity of the first emotional state ofthe same partner at the beginning of this category, e.g., when interest (þ) wasfollowed by a negative emotional state (7); (c) Fluctuating sequence wasdefined as one in which the intensity of the first and the last emotional statesof one partner was in the same position on the scale, while the intermediateintensity(s) were different, e.g., when pleasure to the partner (þþþ) wasfollowed by neutral emotional state (0) and this was followed by pleasureagain (þþþ); and (d) Stable category referred to an unchanging intensity ofemotional state of one partner throughout the whole course of a category,e.g., a partner expressed interest throughout the paternal verbal expression.

Inter-observer reliability assessments were made for the facial expressionsof emotions and the intensity of paternal and infant emotional states. Inter-observer reliability for all categories ranged from 0.76 to 0.86, the meanvalue of k for all categories being 0.80. Scores obtained for the facialexpressions of emotions ranged from 0.76 to 0.85, and those for emotionalintensity ranged from 0.76 to 0.86. After the end of inter-observer reliability

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assessments, the two scorers discussed and corrected each assessment onwhich there was disagreement. The statistical analysis was carried out afterall the corrections had been made to the data set.

Statistical analysis

This experiment, by its nature, generated data with relatively strongdependencies between them since repeated observations on time were

Figure 2.Matching of interest expression. (a) Baby boy two months old: In the course of mutual

eye contact, the father starts talking with an unsmiling face with raised eyebrows while the

infant is motionless, expressing interest to him. (b) The father ends his question while mutual

eye contact, with attentive and unsmiling faces, still feature infant – father interaction.

Figure 3. Matching of pleasure expression. (a) Baby boy six months old: Infant and father seem

to enjoy paternal singing with mutual expressions of pleasure. (b) The father stops singing, and

in the course of eye contact, both partners still express mutual pleasure.

EMOTIONS DURING INFANT – FATHER CONVERSATIONS 713

obtained from a relatively small number of individuals. These longitudinaldependencies were not taken into account in the analysis because of theircomplexity. Therefore, for the statistical analysis, the chi-square test ofindependence was used to determine possible relationships between pairs ofcategorical variables. This would tend to increase the number of significantresults. For this reason, the significance level was set at 1% (instead of 5%),as a safeguard against false rejections of the null hypothesis, increasingtherefore the power of the test. No chi-square value was considered as validif a minimum expected frequency less than one was found. For convenience,when results are presented in a table, the independent variable is alwayspresented in the columns. Conclusions based on these tables were made withregard to the distribution of the dependent variable, for each value of theindependent variable. When there was a disagreement between frequenciesand percentages, the conclusions were reached in relation to percentagessince inferences on the basis of frequencies can be misleading when differentsample sizes are used for different levels of explanatory variables. Allanalyses were performed using SPSS statistical package (Version 13, 2004).

RESULTS

In the course of 880 minutes of free infant – father interaction a total of 4386subunits of analysis of paternal infant-directed speech were recorded. Giventhat the investigation of the relationship between infant and paternalemotions was the main interest of this analysis, any relationship would be ofinterest provided that it concerned the common predominant emotions ofboth partners, that is, paternal pleasure and interest (81.2% and 40%,respectively) and infant pleasure and interest (27.4% and 59.5%,respectively).

A relationship between the fathers’ and the infants’ emotions(w2¼ 137.99, df¼ 4, p5 .001; Table 1) showed that when the father wasexpressing pleasure, the infant was also pleased (22.5%) more than when thefather was showing interest (6.6%) or pleasure and interest directed to the

TABLE 1Relationship between paternal and infant emotions during paternal infant-directed

speech

Infant facial expressions of emotions

Paternal facial expressions of emotions

Pleasure Interest Pleasure/interest

Pleasure 184 (22.5%) 9 (6.6%) 8 (4.5%)

Interest 427 (52.1%) 122 (89.7%) 78 (44.3%)

Pleasure/interest 208 (25.4%) 5 (3.7%) 90 (51.1%)

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father, sequentially (4.5%). When the father was showing interest, theinfant was more likely to be interested (89.7%) than when the fatherwas pleased (52.1%) or pleased and interested (44.3%). When the father wasexpressing pleasure and interest, the infant was more likely to express bothemotions (51.1%) than when the father was pleased (25.4%) or interested(3.7%).

Descriptive analysis of the emotional matching, mismatching and theircombination, provided evidence that emotional matching occurred in 1140(26%) subunits, emotional mismatching was analysed for 1276 (29.1%)subunits and their combination described the dyadic emotional states of1970 (44.9%) subunits.

As far as the direction of emotional matching is concerned, the followingdescription and the analysis that regards the relationship between thedirection of emotional matching and infant’s age is based on the frequenciesthat represent infant and paternal emotional matching derived from thesubunits that contained one matching and from the first emotional matchingof the subunits that contained more than one matching. The present dataprovided evidence that emotional matching by the infant occurred in 1815(76.7%) subunits of analysis and predominated over emotional matching bythe father, which was coded in 551 (23.3%) subunits (p5 .0001, two-tailedBinomial test).

Independently of the direction of emotional matching, a relationshipbetween infant and paternal emotional intensity (w2¼ 471.06, df¼ 9,p5 .001; Table 2) shows that when the emotions of the father wereascending, the infant’s emotions were mostly ascending (36%) than whenthe father was descending (17.6%), stable (18%) or fluctuating (22.6%).Similarly, when the father’s emotions were descending, stable or fluctuating,the infant’s emotional intensity changed in the same rather than a differentdirection.

Even, when the direction of emotional matching was taken intoconsideration, a relationship between infant and paternal emotional

TABLE 2Relationship between paternal and infant emotional intensity during paternal infant-

directed speech

Infant emotional intensity

Paternal emotional intensity

Ascending Descending Stable Fluctuating

Ascending 171 (36%) 40 (17.6%) 603 (18%) 76 (22.6%)

Descending 60 (12.6%) 63 (27.8%) 454 (13.6%) 68 (20.2%)

Stable 127 (26.7%) 55 (24.2%) 1864 (55.7%) 56 (16.7%)

Fluctuating 117 (24.6%) 69 (30.4%) 427 (12.8%) 136 (40.5%)

EMOTIONS DURING INFANT – FATHER CONVERSATIONS 715

intensity, during the course of the subunits in which the infant matched theemotions of the father (w2¼ 52.674, df¼ 4, p5 .0001), revealed that whenthe emotions of the father were ascending, the infant’s emotions weremostly ascending (56.4%) than when paternal emotions were descending(27.7%), or fluctuating (29.2%). When the father’s emotions weredescending, the infant’s emotions were mostly descending (24.6%) thanwhen paternal emotions were ascending (10.7%), or fluctuating (20.2%).Similarly, when paternal emotions were fluctuating, the infant’s emotionswere mostly fluctuating (50.2%) than when paternal emotions wereascending (32.9%), or descending (47.7%). Infant and paternal categoriesof stable emotional intensity were eliminated due to the low frequencies ofinfant stable category. Similarly, a relationship between infant andpaternal emotional intensity, during the course of the subunits in whichthe father matched the emotions of the infant (w2¼ 52.304, df¼ 4,p5 .0001), revealed that when the emotions of the infant were ascending,the father’s emotions were mostly ascending (66.7%) than when infantemotions were descending (29.5%) or fluctuating (33.5%). Similarly, whenthe infant’s emotions were descending or fluctuating, the father’semotional intensity changed in the same (24.1% and 48.1%, respectively)rather than a different direction.

A relationship between paternal predominant emotions in thebeginning and at the end of spontaneous paternal speech (w2¼ 1780.86,df¼ 1, p5 .001) shows that when the father was pleased at thebeginning of free paternal speech, he was more highly probable toremain pleased at the end of paternal infant-directed speech than when hewas interested at the beginning of paternal infant-directed speech.Further, when the father was interested at the beginning of paternalinfant-directed speech, he was mostly likely to remain interested at theend of it than when he was pleased at the beginning of paternal infant-directed speech. Similarly, a relationship between infant predominantemotions in the beginning and at the end of spontaneous paternal speech(w2¼ 1573.38, df¼ 4, p5 .001) provides evidence that when the infantwas pleased, interested in the father or expressed interest/pleasure inthe inanimate world at the beginning of paternal speech, he/she wasmore likely to express the same respective emotional expressions at theend of it.

The analysis for the relationship between infant’s age and partner’semotions was carried out only for the prevailing emotions of infant interestand paternal pleasure. Chi-square analysis showed a significant relationshipbetween infant interest and age (w2¼ 71.520, df¼ 8, p5 .001) and paternalpleasure and age (w2¼ 37.88, df¼ 8, p5 .001). As seen in Figure 4, thedevelopmental curves of infant interest and paternal pleasure seem to besimilar across the age range of 2 to 6 months.

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DISCUSSION

This study aimed to investigate the facial expressions of emotions of infantsand fathers in the course of free paternal infant-directed speech taking placein dyadic naturalistic interactions from the second to the sixth month of life.

The present study provided evidence that in the course of spontaneouspaternal infant-directed speech, fathers and infants co-ordinated theiremotional expressions, either in the form of emotional matching (onepartner expressed the valence of the facial expression of emotion of the otherpartner), or in the form of emotional attunement (one partner matched theshifts of emotional intensity of the other partner). The evidence of emotionalattunement between infant and paternal expressions is reinforced by thequantification of Table 2, which shows the relationship between paternaland infant emotional intensity. One reasonable way to quantify attunementis to see the ratio of the cases in which attunement occurred to the totalnumber of the observed cases. The sum of the frequencies of the centraldiagonal to the total number of cases (171þ 63þ 1864þ 136¼ 2234/4386¼ .50) provides such an index.

The evidence of infant and paternal emotional matching and attunementof facial expressions in the course of fathers’ speech implies that theemotional context accompanying paternal infant-directed speech constitutes

Figure 4. Developmental curves of paternal pleasure and infant interest during paternal infant-

directed speech across the age range from 2 to 6 months.

EMOTIONS DURING INFANT – FATHER CONVERSATIONS 717

an example of intersubjectivity, that is, the process in which mentalactivity—including motives and emotions—is transferred between minds(Trevarthen, 1998b; Trevarthen, Kokkinaki, & Fiamengi, 1999). Inparticular, the evidence provided implies that both fathers and infantsadjust the timing, form and energy of their emotional facial expressions toobtain inter-synchrony. Timing adjustment is evidenced by the temporalstructure of emotional matching implied by the definition of it. This mayimply that not only are infants able to adjust or fit their emotions to theemotions of others, but that they participate actively and control to a greatextent the exchange. In this way infants may compensate or counter-balancefor the predominance of parental over infant imitation of other expressivebehaviours. (Kokkinaki, 1998; Kugiumutzakis, 1993). This suggestion maybe integrated in the hypothesis that communication is regulated by anintegrated system of equivalent expressions, in which most responses arecomplementary translations of the partner’s expressions (Trevarthen,1993a).

Despite the fact that in this study, the coding of facial expressions ofemotions did not include fine-grained measurements of muscle activity,emotional matching of facial expressions implies, indirectly, adjustment ofspatial patterns or forms of muscle activity. Given that the human facialcommunicative system has a highly differentiated facial anatomy ‘‘. . .attached a bisymmetric set of muscle units that are differentially excitable’’(Trevarthen, 1985, p. 22), and that ‘‘. . . the discrete facial muscle actionsvisible in the adult can be identified and finely discriminated in newborns’’(Oster & Ekman, 1978, cited by Field, 1982, p. 284), matching of facialexpressions of emotions implies adjustment or fitting of the spatial patternsof fathers’ and infants’ facial muscle activities.

Energy adjustment is evidenced by emotional attunement of facialexpressions of emotions, as implied by the matching of emotional shifts. Thepresent study provided evidence that when the fathers’ emotional intensitywas rising, infants were found to attune in a sympathetic ascending way, asif they agreed on raising the emotional intensity of the interaction. When thefathers’ emotions were descending, infants’ emotional tone fell, as if infantsconsented to leading the interaction into disruption. When fathers’expressions of emotions fluctuated, infants’ emotional tone was alsofluctuating, either because of the infants’ efforts to search for stability, orbecause infants were trying to subtly attune to all the shifts in the fathers’emotional tones. Further, when the fathers’ emotions were stable in quality,infants did not change their emotional expressions, implying their intentionto facilitate and maintain interaction. These regulating patterns provideevidence that infants can experience both self-awareness and other-awareness as well as awareness of purposeful sharing of emotional states(Trevarthen, 1993a, 1993b).

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This suggestion is reinforced by the ‘‘consistency’’ and ‘‘stability’’ ininfants’ and fathers’ emotional states and emotional intensity in the courseof spontaneous paternal infant-directed speech. This kind of consistencysuggests that paternal infant-directed speech constitutes an expressivesystem featured by self-regulatory emotions aimed for coherence inawareness, consciousness and purpose, unified intentionality and controlof internal states and processes (Izard, 1992; Trevarthen, 1993b).

The evidence of similar courses of infant interest and paternal pleasureand the non-linear developmental course of infant emotions provided by thisstudy implies periodic reorganizations in the infants’ motivational systems(Kugiumutzakis, 1993; Trevarthen, 1998a), which may give rise to eithercorresponding motivational changes in fathers, or to changes in theirperception of the moods and interests of infants. The similarity ofdevelopmental curves implies the dyadic propelling of development by theinteraction of motivational changes in both infants and fathers (Trad, 1990).

In sum, the present study provided evidence that the emotional contextaccompanying paternal infant-directed speech during early infancy con-stitutes an example of intersubjective co-ordination (evidenced by mutualadjustment of timing, form and energy of emotional expressions) and intra-subjective regulation (evidenced by the ‘‘consistency’’ in infants’ and fathers’emotional states and emotional intensity).

This evidence highlights the need for more intensive research on theemotional aspects of paternal infant-directed speech given that the focus onfacial expressions, as an index of emotions, has to be completed by theinvestigation of other expressive systems that convey affective information(Weinberg & Tronick, 1994).

Manuscript received 28 March 2007

Revised manuscript accepted 21 November 2007

First published online 13 February 2008

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