at approximately what age does a baby begin to demonstrate social referencing

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

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PMCID: PMC4262602

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

Gina C. Mireault

Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont

Susan C. Crockenberg

University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont

John E. Sparrow

University 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 State College, Johnson, Vermont

Abstract

Social referencing refers to infants' apply of caregivers as emotional referents in ambiguous situations (Walden, 1993). Studies of social referencing typically require ambulation, thereby over-looking younger, non-convalescent infants (i.e., ≤ 8-mos) and resulting in a widespread assumption that young infants exercise non use this strategy. Using a novel arroyo that does not crave mobility, we institute that when parents provided unsolicited melancholia cues during an cryptic-absurd (i.eastward., humorous) event, six-calendar month-olds employ one component of social referencing, social looking Additionally, 6-month-olds who did not express joy at the event were significantly more probable to expect toward parents than their counterparts who institute the consequence funny. Sequential analyses revealed that, following a reference to a smiling parent, 6-month olds were more than probable to smile at the parent, but by 12 months were more likely to smile at the effect suggesting that older infants are influenced by parental affect in humorous situations. The developmental implications of these findings are discussed, as well every bit the usefulness of studying humor for understanding important developmental phenomena.

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

Although well-nigh infants begin to laugh past 4 months of historic period, little is known about how or why they interpret a stimulus every bit humorous. Ane possibility is that infants rely on emotional cues from others when confronted with absurd events that are initially ambiguous to them. This miracle is broadly referred to as social referencing (SR) and has been clearly observed in infants in the 2d office of the starting time year (Walden, 1993) when they are confronted with an ambiguous, but potentially threatening stimulus like a visual cliff. In this written report, we investigated SR longitudinally from 6- to 12-months examining: 1) if infants use SR past the end of the start half of the kickoff year; and 2) if younger and older infants apply SR in ambiguous-absurd situations. Our goal was to runway 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 iii sequential components: the infant actively seeks another person's affective appraisement of a stimulus, that individual provides a clear affective message about the stimulus, and the babe regulates his/her affect and behavior toward the event to align with that bulletin (Rosen, Adamson, & Bakeman, 1992). Walden (1993) describes SR as a simple simply powerful strategy used especially by pre-verbal infants who must rely on others' cues to cocky-regulate in a multifariousness of novel situations. Every bit "universal novices" (p. 188) most situations are new to infants and they must determine how to respond (Walden, 1993). According to Campos (1983), SR is a biologically organized process that has the value of communicating important emotional messages (e.g., threat and joy) in situations of incertitude. Numerous studies with infants evidence "articulate, pervasive, and observable" (p. 84) effects on infants' impact communicated cross-modally via others' facial, vocal, and gestural cues (Vaish & Striano, 2004), a redundancy that, co-ordinate to Campos (1983), suggests central significance for adaptation whereby the naïve infant learns vicariously via others' affect.

Despite acknowledging the importance of SR to infant social-emotional evolution, most research has ignored infants younger than 8 months of historic period. Except for a few studies (e.grand., Devouche, 2004; Feinman & Lewis, 1983), SR research protocols have primarily relied on mobility as a dependent variable to assess the influence of SR on infants' behavioral decisions (e.1000., whether to approach a threatening stimulus like a visual cliff or caged rabbit), therefore requiring older infants who are mobile. It is articulate that infants utilize SR by the stop of the first twelvemonth (Walden & Baxter, 1989). However, infants younger than 6-months exhibit several skills (e.grand., detection and discrimination of emotional expressions in visual and song modalities, coordination of gaze-post-obit and touch) consistent with an earlier-than-expected emergence of social referencing (Vaillant-Molina & Bahrick, 2012). Contempo investigations using eye-tracking technologies accept begun to demonstrate that half-dozen-month-old infants expect at adults for information and that 9-month-olds' looking behavior tin can 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 (e.grand., social looking) may emerge earlier in the first yr before converging into archetype SR by eight months. Additionally, young infants may use unsolicited parental touch to appraise events, and may come up to sympathize that caregivers are sources of affective information about events.

Furthermore, Nishida and Lillard (2007) point out that SR enquiry employs foreign or disruptive situations (e.g., visual cliff, confronting a stranger), and advise that researchers should investigate whether SR is used in "situations that are not entirely novel and ambiguous, but slightly 'out-of-the-ordinary'" (p.206). For instance, although numerous studies accept shown that infants use SR to interpret ambiguity as threatening, none have examined whether they use it to interpret ambivalence as humorous. Taken together two gaps exist in the SR research: first, whether younger, non-ambulatory infants besides appoint in SR when confronting ambivalence; and 2nd, whether SR is employed in situations that present a lower threshold of ambiguity, such as those involving humor.

Infant sense of humour development itself is a little-understood process. Sense of humor generally refers to the perception, expression, and cosmos of entertainment, and has been understood from a social theoretical perspective every bit a fundamentally interpersonal feel (Provine & Fischer, 1989; Reddy, 2008), and from a cognitive framework as recognition of incongruity (Rothbart, 1973). In infants, humor perception is almost apparent in smile and laughing, universal behaviors that appear very early from 0-6 weeks and iii-four months, respectively (Ruch & Ekman, 2001; Wolff, 1963). Humour involves the complex convergence of neural (Wild, Rhodden, Grodd, & Ruch, 2003), cerebral (Forabosco, 1992), behavioral (Lockard, Fahrenbruch, Smith, & Morgan, 1977), emotional (Panksepp, 2005), and social (Chapman, 1983) responses. Withal, infants show a high capacity for humor, laughter, and play in the first 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 ane's head. Infants this age also attempt to elicit laughter in others and try to maintain humorous interactions that are in progress (Loizou, 2005). These observations of infant humor accept 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 eleven-month-olds engage in simple teasing like offering and withdrawing an object, an early form of charade and an indication that infants may hold more agreement of others' minds than is typically causeless. Thus, studying humor tin help provide a developmental account of early on social understanding (Stack & Lewis, 2008).

The scant enquiry on infant humor from an interpersonal perspective suggests that sense of humour emerges in – and in fact, requires - the important interpersonal contexts of infancy (Loizou, 2005). In these contexts infants may come to rely on others' affective cues to interpret an ambiguous upshot every bit humorous. In fact, Reddy (2008) argues that even the earliest consistent stimulus of laughter in babies – tickling – requires a "social wrapping" (p. 201) to ascertain information technology as funny. In support of this, Mireault, Poutre, Sargent-Hier, Dias, Perdue, and Myrick (2012) found that parents consistently used cues of grinning and laughter when engaging in absurd actions (i.e., odd faces and voices) with their 3- to 6-month-old infants, which may explain why these absurdities were non perceived as threatening and why they became more humorous to babies over time. Similarly, Hoicka & Gattis (2012) report that acoustic cues assist listeners distinguish between humorous and other types of advice and, when paired with laughing and grinning, may contribute to humor perception.

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

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether young infants employ social referencing to interpret an ambiguous event every bit humorous and to track the emergence of SR longitudinally from half-dozen- to 12-months with regard to humor perception. Thirty vi-month-old infants were videoed at habitation while they watched a researcher present i of their parents with ordinary and ambiguous-cool events, during which parents' melancholia cues were manipulated (neutral or laughing) in a within-subjects counter-balanced design, a procedure that was repeated when infants were 12 months old. Nosotros made the post-obit predictions: 1) infants at both ages would distinguish ordinary from absurd events, 2) infants at both ages would not observe an effect humorous (i.east., smile/express joy at the absurd effect) unless the event was accompanied by parental melancholia humor cues, 3) infants would reference the parent more often during cool vs. ordinary events, especially at 6-months, as those events should be more ambiguous for younger infants, and iv) at both ages infants' would exhibit classic social referencing(i.e., their smiles and gazes at the effect would be more likely to sequentially follow their references to parents' smiles.

1.1 Method

one.1.1 Participants

Thirty infant-parent dyads participated at 6- and again at 12-months of age. Infants (16 males, 14 females) had at to the lowest degree one older sibling (north=20). Most participating parents were mothers (due north=28). Parents of infants tended to be married (n=28) with mothers ranging from 25 to 43 years (M=33.40, SD=5.33) and fathers from 24 to 51 years (Thousand=35.33, SD=half dozen.54). Most infants' mothers (n=21) and fathers (n=28) worked fulltime hours (M _M=36.07, SD _M=10.59; M _F=42.86, SD _F=8.ninety), with combined almanac incomes ranging widely from $7,300 to $250,000 (G=$85,643, SD=$45,976). Parental education ranged from 12 to 20 years for mothers (M=sixteen.45, SD=1.87) and 10 to 23 years for fathers (Thou=sixteen.57, SD=2.73).

ane.1.2 Apparatus

2 ordinary items probable to be familiar to vi-month-olds were selected: a vinyl picture book and a blood-red foam ball (1.5" in diameter). These materials were used as intended for the ordinary events and in novel and potentially amusing ways for the ambiguous-absurd events. No other materials were used in the procedure.

ane.1.3 Measures

Ii teams of trained enquiry assistants worked in dyads to code discrete, non-overlapping baby behaviors from the videoed experimental procedure. Frequency and duration (in seconds) of each beliefs were measured, and proportions were calculated to control for variability in length of exposure to the event (i.e., considering of human error, the researcher sometimes performed the upshot for slightly more or less than 45 seconds). Inter-rater reliability based on a random selection of 25% of the videos beyond behaviors and ages ranged from .73 to .94.

Smiling and laughing

Positive bear on was defined as grin and/or laughing. Due to the low frequency of laughter in this minor sample of behavior, also as their non-mutual exclusivity; smiling and laughter were collapsed into a unmarried category and coded specific to its target: at parent, at event, or while looking away. Smiling/laughing were likely of low frequency due to the curt duration of the experimental conditions (45 seconds) and the fact that the infant, despite beingness in a familiar surroundings, notwithstanding had to suit to the novelty of the experimenter and situation.

Social looking and social referencing

In accordance with studies on this phenomenon (Nishida & Lillard, 2007; Sorce et al., 1985; Vaish & Striano, 2004), social looking was defined as infants' looks towards the parent. If infants were smiling during the look, then this beliefs was coded as "baby smiles at parent" instead of social looking. This was done in order to preserve the detached categories of behaviors and to be able to analyze the target of infant smiling/laughing in addition to the frequency and duration of smiling. Grinning at the parent was also differentiated from looking at the parent, as the quondam is both affective and behavioral, whereas the latter is behavioral. Social looking is differentiated from social referencing (SR) in that the latter involves a modify in the baby'southward beliefs or affect consistent with and subsequent to a social look to the parent'south affective bulletin. Social looking is likewise not necessarily in itself a solicitation of information. Thus, SR was examined every bit a archetype sequence of behaviors consistent with previous studies (e.grand., Rosen at al., 1992): 1) infant gazes at upshot, 2) babe looks at parent, who is neutral or smiling, 3) infant gazes dorsum at the event (if parent is neutral) or smiles at the event (if parent is smiling).

Gazes at event

Gazes were coded when infants' optics were directed at the experimental issue in the absenteeism of baby smiling. If the infant smiled while gazing, this was coded equally "smiles at event". Again, this was to preserve the discrete nature of the behaviors and to exist 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 result.

Wait away

When infants averted their gaze from the upshot, regardless of the subsequent direction of their gaze (unless it was toward the parent, which was coded as a social look), information technology was coded as "look away". Expect away was coded for frequency and elapsing, as well as the length of time that elapsed (i.e., latency) earlier the infant looked away.

1.ane.4 Procedure

Flyers were mailed to parents whose names appeared in the birth announcements of five surface area newspapers. The flyer indicated that the study was exploring "how babies figure out what is funny." Interested parents called or e-mailed the PI who provided details well-nigh the procedure and obtained informed consent. Eligibility criteria included total-term, singleton delivery, and living within a 50-mile radius of the research site in one of 3 counties.

I week in advance of the experimental procedure, parents received a packet in the post containing a demographic questionnaire, a re-create of the informed consent, and $5.00 compensation. A researcher visited participants in their homes within ane week of infants' vi-calendar month birthdays. Infants were seated in a loftier chair betwixt the researcher and the parent in a triangular configuration with approximately three feet between each fellow member. This seating system immune the babe to run across both the parent and the event presented by the researcher, and required infants to slightly turn their heads and then that coding the target of infants' looking beliefs was articulate. The parent and researcher sat directly reverse each other, and parents were instructed to look at and straight their touch on toward the event, not at the babe, for the duration of the procedure. The effect of this configuration was to place the babe in the function of observing the event and the parent'due south reaction to it. A video camera on a tripod was set up opposite the babe then that the complete triad could be captured in the frame.

The researcher presented three events with each of two objects (ball and book) to parents while infants observed. Objects were initially presented as they are normally used (i.east., the book was read to the parent, the ball was tossed mitt to hand and described to the parent), and parents were instructed to act as they commonly would during these ordinary events. The objects were then used to create ambiguous-cool events (i.e., the opened book was repeatedly placed upside down on the researcher's head while she said "joop joop"; the ball 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 three times, "This is a ball. The brawl is carmine. I can squish it. I tin curl it. I can toss it paw to hand." Ordinary and absurd events were designed to be as similar equally possible with regard to length, script, song presentation, and motility. Experimenters remained affectively neutral across all 3 conditions, and looked exclusively at parents, non at infants. During the cryptic-cool events parents were instructed to remain affectively expressionless with a neutral, "still face" (command condition) and to point and laugh at the event (cued condition); these affective weather condition were counterbalanced.

Our procedure differed from the classic SR paradigm in i important way: parental affective cues were not contingent upon infants' solicitation of affective information. Instead, we examined whether infants are influenced past unsolicited parental affect under conditions of humor. Our determination to deviate from the archetype SR paradigm was based on the following reasons: 1) We were concerned nearly the developmental and methodological sensitivity of studying non-ambulatory half dozen-month-olds using a procedure designed for convalescent eight-to-12-month-olds; two) our procedure was necessarily brief given the attention-span of such young infants, such that waiting for them to solicit melancholia information would potentially undermine the entirety of the procedure; and 3) we wanted to employ a more externally valid procedure. Thus nosotros were guided by Campos' (1983) finding that impact can be imposed on others and by Walden'due south (1993) observation that parents tend to provide unsolicited emotional information that influences infants' responses. Similarly, Mireault et al. (2012) found that in naturally occurring humorous exchanges, parents smile and express joy in conjunction with cool behavior (clowning). For these reasons, nosotros designed a process that would allow us to determine if parental affect influenced immature infants' response toward an absurd result.

Several investigators (Campos, 1983; Kim, Walden, & Knieps, 2010) take suggested that the affective communication involved in social referencing involves facial, vocal, and gestural cues, and Vaillant-Molina and Bahrick (2011) found that this "intersensory redundancy" (p. 7) was required for 5½ calendar month-olds to detect a human relationship between an developed'south affective display and a respective toy. Thus, parents were instructed to use facial, vocal, and gestural cues in the cued condition and to evangelize these cues continuously to insure that parents' emotional message about the result were obvious to these immature infants. Parents were provided with examples of what they could say (e.g., "That is and then silly!" "Isn't that funny!"), but were allowed to deviate from the script as long as they did not instruct the baby on what to do (e.g., "Go the brawl!") nor touch the infant or the object. Parents occasionally glanced at their infants, but, equally instructed, parental affect was directed at the result, not at the babe, to avoid the possibility of infant distress in the neutral face condition.

Thus in that location were three conditions (ordinary, ambiguous-absurd with neutral/no melancholia cues, and cryptic-absurd with smiling/laughing affective cues) for each of two objects (volume and brawl). All half dozen events were timed to final approximately 45 seconds in duration (M = 38.2, SD = 8.ii, Mdn = twoscore). Parents were compensated an additional $25.00 upon completion of the procedure, which was repeated when infants were 12-months-quondam, at which time parents were compensated an additional $40.00. Ii researchers conducted the experiment over the course of the study, and typically the aforementioned researcher conducted the experiment on the same infants at half dozen- and 12-months. Similarly, the aforementioned parent participated at both time points.

1.one.five Analyses

To reduce the number of comparisons in this small sample, we combined dependent measures from both ordinary conditions, both ambiguous-absurd neutral weather condition, and both cryptic-absurd cued conditions for all babe 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 expect away, smiling at the result, and social looking. Paired sample t-tests were besides used to compare social looking and grin/laughing between the ambiguous-absurd neutral and ambiguous-absurd cued conditions and betwixt ages. Holm-Bonferroni corrections were used to maintain a family-wise error rate of .05 within each age group.

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 affect (smiling/laughing) and visual arroyo (i.e., gazing dorsum at the consequence) was contingent upon parental touch on (grinning/laughing vs. neutral). If infants utilize social referencing to interpret ambiguity, and then a sequence of behaviors consistent with SR should occur at higher than chance levels. The SR sequence was specified as follows: the experimenter presents the cryptic consequence, the babe looks at the event, the parent displays positive facial, gestural and vocal cues (or neutrality, as appropriate to the condition), the baby looks at the parent, the infant smiles/laughs and/or gazes back at the issue. 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 prepare; sequences with ordinarily occurring behaviors have higher expected frequencies than sequences with unusual behaviors. Chi-square analysis was then used to compare expected to observed frequencies of behaviors (Nishida & Lillard, 2007).

1.2 Results

Group comparisons

As expected, six-month-former infants took significantly longer to look away from ambiguous-absurd versus ordinary events, indicating that they distinguished the two types of events (Oakes, 2010). This result was also found at 12-months, but was negated subsequent to the Holm-Bonferroni aligning. However and contrary to the hypotheses, both six- and 12-month-olds smiled longer at the effect, and 12-month-olds also smiled more oft 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 melancholia guidance. Too unexpected, 6-calendar month-olds smiled significantly more oft and longer at the absurd events when parents remained neutral instead of providing cues, only by 12-months in that location was no difference in smile between the affective weather condition. Similarly unexpected, infants at both ages failed to engage in more than social looking during ambiguous-absurd versus ordinary events, pregnant they were no more likely to solicit information from their parents during these unusual events than during ordinary events, perhaps because they had disambiguated the events independently or because they found both events novel given the involvement of a stranger or because parents refrained from ostensive cues (east.k., pointing) during both events. Nevertheless, not all 6-month-olds found the events amusing (n=14), and this group of infants employed more social looking (Thousand =.fifteen, SD = .17), appearing to solicit parental guidance, than their laughing counterparts (Yard = .05, SD = .07) who appeared to have resolved the ambivalence, t(26) = 2.16, p <.05. Finally, when parents smiled and laughed during the cryptic-cool events, both 6- and 12-calendar month-olds used more and longer social looking, but contrary to the prediction, 6-month-olds smiled significantly less at the event, both in duration and frequency, and by12-months exhibited no differences in smiling across conditions. (See Tabular array 1).

Table 1

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

	Age Tested
	6 months			12 months
DV	Yard (SD)	t(28)	p	Chiliad (SD)	t(28)	p
Latency to expect away
Ordinary	19.88(ten.17)			18.14(6.03)
Cool-neutral	28.64(xi.93)	-3.06	.005*	22.74(x.47)	-2.29	.030
Smiles/Laughs: Frequency
Ordinary	.12(.thirteen)			.07(.11)
Absurd-neutral	.15(.17)	-i.20	.240	.fifteen(.xv)	-3.04	.005*
Smiles/Laughs: Duration
Ordinary	.05(.09)			.03(.04)
Absurd-neutral	.14(.20)	-ii.81	.009*	.18(.twenty)	-4.49	.001*
Smiles/Laughs: Frequency
Absurd-neutral	.xv(.17)			.15(.fifteen)
Absurd-cued	.09(.10)	3.18	.004*	.14(.14)	.35	.730
Smiles/Laughs: Elapsing
Cool-neutral	.14(.xx)			.18(.20)
Cool-cued	.08(.13)	2.63	.014*	.14(.xix)	.97	.341
Social Looking: Frequency
Ordinary	.11(.xiii)			.xiii(.15)
Cool-neutral	.11(.14)	0.07	.942	.15(.13)	-.59	.560
Social Looking: Frequency
Absurd-neutral	.11(.fourteen)			.15(.13)
Cool-cued	.28(.13)	-5.lx	.001*	.24(.14)	-three.75	.001*
Social Looking: Duration
Absurd-neutral	.04(.06)			.06(.07)
Absurd-cued	.21(.17)	-5.71	.001*	.fourteen(.12)	-iv.03	.001*

Sequential analysis

Sequential assay was conducted to explore sequences of parent-(i.e., affect or no touch) baby (i.e., smiling/laughing, gazing, and social referencing) beliefs, illuminating the dynamic social interaction instead of static measures of specific behaviors whose sequence is unknown. In essence, sequential analysis preserves the sequential nature of the information, which is assessed via follow-up chi-square inferential analyses and examination of adapted residuals (Bakeman & Gottman, 1997; Bakeman & Quera, 2011). Infants' smiles were coded according to their target (i.due east., at event, at parent as a social look, and/or while looking away) in each condition. 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 behavior within the data set. Chi-square analysis was 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 ambiguity every bit positive when cued by parents, consistent with the following sequence: the experimenter presents the ambiguous-absurd event, the parent exhibits positive facial, gestural and song cues, the infant looks at the parent, the infant exhibits positive affect toward the event or gazes back at the outcome.

Sequential analyses revealed that infants at both 6- and 12-months were less likely to smile at the ambiguous-absurd effect after looking at a grin parent, with half-dozen-calendar month-olds more likely to grin at the parent and 12-month-olds less likely to do so. Figure one depicts the design of the adjusted residuals, which represent the degree to which the observed frequencies deviate from gamble as z-scores (Bakeman & Quera, 2011, pp. 109-110). The residuals analysis indicates that infants at both ages were more likely to gaze at the absurd event after observing their parents' smiling, laughter and pointing toward information technology, suggesting parental touch on influenced infants' gaze behavior toward the event. Calculation of odds ratios, however, indicated that these differences were not significant between the neutral and cued weather for half dozen-month-olds (OR = .86, 95% CI [.44, 1.69], p > .05), and for 12-month-olds (OR = one.25, 95% CI [.60, 2.sixty], p > .05), although the tendency is apparent. Table ii shows the private results of the sequential assay chi-squares for each of the effect types by age.

Adjusted residual analysis of grin events following social looking. The red lines represent observed frequencies greater than or less than chance, respectively (p < .05). BSE = baby smiles at result; BSP = baby smiles at parent; SLA = baby smiles and looks away; BGE = baby gazes at event

Table 2

Sequential Analysis of Grinning & Gazing Result Frequencies Following Social Looking

	half dozen months				12 months
	O	E	χ2	p	O	East	χ2	p
Ordinary:
BSE	1	3.68	11.46	0.02	0	two.46	22.72	< .01†
BSP	1	0.58			0	0.57
SLA	0	0.92			0	0.38
BGE	18	10.58			19	9.27
Absurd-Neutral:
BSE	2	10.51	29.01	< .01	2	eight.70	32.96	< .01
BSP	4	two.55			one	3.79
SLA	1	3.fifteen			0	i.68
BGE	33	17.72			33	16.14
Absurd-Cued:
BSE	3	14.31	92.50	< .01	5	xvi.46	132.36	< .01
BSP	18	9.93			viii	thirteen.81
SLA	three	iv.38			i	1.59
BGE	90	fifty.53			88	37.97

When all looks toward the parent (i.e., "social looking" and "baby smiles at parent") were complanate into a single category, parental affect was shown to influence infant affect toward the event. Specifically, when 12-month-olds were compared beyond conditions, they were significantly more than likely to immediately and afterward smile at the event afterward looking at a grinning vs. a neutral parent, an effect not observed for vi-month-olds (see Figure ii). Information technology is possible that, in the cued status infants many have been smiling prior to looking at their grinning parent. However, the sequence was meaning past status suggesting that at the very least parental affect influenced 12-month-olds to maintain positive affect toward the event.

Adjusted residual assay of smiling events following any reference to the parent (i.e., Social Looking and/or Babe Smiles at Parent). The cerise lines stand for observed frequencies greater than or less than adventure, respectively (p < .05). BSE = baby smiles at event; SLA = babe smiles and looks away; BGE = infant gazes at upshot

ane.three Discussion

Inquiry has consistently shown that by the second one-half of the first year of life, infants rely on caregivers equally emotional referents in ambiguous situations (Walden, 1993), a miracle known every bit social referencing (SR). Since studies of SR typically require ambulation as function of the dependent measure, younger, non-convalescent infants (i.due east., ≤ 8 mos) have been largely overlooked with the resulting assumption that they practice not engage in SR. Our report deviated from classic studies of SR in iv important ways: offset, we included vi-month-sometime infants and followed them longitudinally to track the emergence of SR and its main component, social looking. 2nd, we used a protocol that does non require mobility. Tertiary, nosotros employed ambiguous-absurd instead of cryptic-threatening events. Finally, our protocol deviated from classic SR studies in that nosotros did not look for infants to solicit affective information, but instead had parents provide unsolicited cues that included facial, vocal and gestural signals (Vaillant-Molina & Bahrick, 2011; Vaish & Striano, 2004) consistent with their natural behavior when engaging in absurd beliefs with infants (Mireault et al., 2012).

When parents provided unsolicited affective cues, infants at both ages exhibited more frequent and longer social looks toward parents, suggesting parental touch was a salient feature of the effect even though infants did not actively solicit it. This combination of paying close attention to ambiguous-cool events and to others' affective expression toward those events might explain how infants come to see others as referents in cryptic situations after on in development, so that by 8 months of age they actively solicit emotional information from others and regulate accordingly. This is consistent with Walden's (1993) exclamation that although younger infants may not intentionally refer to their parents to translate ambiguous situations, parents provide emotional messages anyway and infants tend to match their affect equally a result.

In fact, sequential analyses of the data showed this very effect for 6-month-olds. That is, following a social await to a smiling parent, 6-month-olds were more likely to smile at the parent, although non at the consequence. The fact that infants in our study looked at parents more than oft and for longer when they provided positive melancholia cues essentially replicates Walden and Baxter's (1989) before finding. It appeared that parents' emotional cues became more than salient than the result itself and influenced 6-month-olds toward affect sharing, which is part of the social experience of humor. It is important to note that parents provided cross-modal affective cues (i.due east., facial, vocal, gestural) that they are likely to requite nether natural conditions, and that other researchers have been plant to exist necessary to notice 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 event on infants, who were less likely to smile at the event or the parent (Run across Figure 1) than when parents remained neutral. It is possible that parental affect distracted infants from the upshot, and/or that they relied upon the neutral experimenter for their affective interpretation. Stenberg (2009) found that infants tend to expect more toward an experimenter than a familiar caregiver, as though infants sympathise that the old has more expertise with regard to the novel situation the experimenter is presenting. Similarly, eye-tracking studies have shown that ix-calendar month-olds' looking behavior can be influenced by an experimenter's beliefs (Senju et al., 2008). In this study, when both parent and experimenter were neutral, infants may accept seen the lack of affect equally part of the absurdity, or smiled and laughed to engage either or both parties. In either example, this finding should be replicated prior to additional interpretation.

Social referencing, as described by Campos (1983) specifically includes the parent's touch becoming contagious to the infant toward an cryptic effect. We did non observe this effect, although we did find some prove for the emergence of SR in this young sample nether conditions of sense of humor. Importantly, we found that half-dozen-month-olds who did not laugh at the result engaged in significantly more social looking, suggesting that they may have been attempting to glean affective data near the event from their parents. In addition, sequential analysis revealed a not-significant trend for the finding that parental affect influenced infant gazing behavior at both ages, such that infants' directed more gazes at the result subsequent to observing a parent grin and laugh at it. Although information technology is possible that parental gestures toward the event (i.e., pointing) were responsible for this tendency. This supports the possibility of an early and more than subtle SR response amongst infants as young as half dozen-months, and is consistent with prior research showing that v½-month-olds (Vaillant-Molina & Bahrick, 2012) and 6-month-olds (Walden & Baxter, 1989) were more than likely to touch on a toy toward which an adult had expressed positive emotion. Yet, when social looking was more broadly divers as any look toward the parent, 12-month-olds, but not 6-calendar month-olds, aligned their bear on toward the consequence with their parents' cues, an observation that is more consistent with classic SR. It is important to note that 12-month-olds only demonstrated this effect in the cued condition, meaning that even if they had been grin when looking at the parent, they only smiled back at the event when the parent was also grinning at it. This effect may reflect affect sharing instead of information gathering by the infant, only the parent's affect clearly impacted the babe's likelihood to proceed to interpret the absurd outcome every bit agreeable.

We generally institute that six- and 12-month-olds did not employ SR in the archetype sense in these situations, meaning they did not actively solicit affective information from their parents during the ambiguous-absurd events. At that place are several explanations for this. Kickoff, infants at both ages institute the ambiguous-absurd events agreeable even when their parents provided no emotional cues, suggesting they did not demand to apply SR equally they had disambiguated the events independently. Second, Stenberg (2009) found that 12-calendar month olds preferred to look to an experimenter rather than a parent for information about a novel event, which may explain their low likelihood of referring to parents. Third, the necessity of SR in absurd situations may be lower than when an babe is faced with threat, an explanation consistent with evolutionary theory and with the ascertainment that fear cues hold more meaning indicate value (Walden, 1993).

The events employed in this study involved a social commutation wherein i person presented ordinary and cryptic-absurd events to the infant'due south parent while the babe watched.

Half-dozen- and 12-month-olds clearly distinguished ordinary from ambiguous-cool events, with the former group taking longer to look away from it and both groups finding absurd events more amusing than ordinary ones. The tendency for infants to stare longer at novel, unexpected events is widely used by researchers as an indicator of infants' understanding of the physical earth (Colombo & Mitchell, 2009). Walden, Kim, McCoy, and Karrass (2007) suggest that looking time is as well an advisable dependent measure of infants' agreement of social events and is a ripe area for continued enquiry. It is possible that infants have expectations of the social world that when violated produce the absurd experience that underlies most humor perception (Louizou, 2005). Interesting in itself is the finding that infants at both ages demonstrated more than mature sense of 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 phenomenon, the electric current written report employed a fairly pocket-size and unrepresentative sample, included but ii cryptic-absurd and ordinary events, and used restrictive dependent measures of baby touch on and behavior. Future research should utilise behavioral (e.k., reaching toward or touching the objects used in the consequence or the person presenting them) and physiological (e.m., heart charge per unit) measures in addition to affective ones, especially every bit grinning and laughing can exist expected to occur at depression frequency in the unusual context of a brief research study.

These findings begin to illustrate the emergence of social referencing beginning at 6 months of age. Six-calendar month-olds who have not independently disambiguated an event appear to engage in information-seeking references toward parents. In addition, regardless of whether they have disambiguated an event, 6-month-olds pay close attention to unsolicited positive affective cues from parents. This information appears to influence infants in 2 means. First, parents' positive emotion becomes contagious to the infants prompting them to grinning more than at parents, although not at the event. 2nd, parents' positive affect influences 12-month-olds to grinning or continue smiling at the result. Thus, the progression appears to be from information-seeking and bear upon-sharing between infant-and-parent at 6-months, to joint affect-sharing toward the event at 12-months.

Infants' emerging understanding of social ambiguities such equally those involved in sense of humor is a unique and potentially rich management for studying social, emotional, and cognitive evolution. Understanding how humor develops may shed lite on of import developmental milestones including social referencing.

​

Highlights

• At both 6- and 12-months, infants showed sophisticated humor perception, even when parents remained affectively neutral.

• vi-month-olds who did not independently disambiguate an absurd upshot as humorous were more than likely to employ social looks at parents.

• 12-month-olds continued to interpret an absurd event as amusing only when their parents did likewise.

• vi-month-olds attended to parental impact vs. events; this may explain how they eventually perceive them as referents.

Acknowledgments

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

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

Footnotes

Publisher'southward 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 version of the manuscript. The manuscript volition undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before information technology is published in its terminal citable grade. Please notation that during the production process errors may exist discovered which could touch on the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Contributor Information

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

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

John E. Sparrow, University of New Hampshire-Manchester, Manchester, New Hampshire.

Christine A. Pettinato, Johnson Country 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/

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