Department of Psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Piazza Ateneo Nuovo 1 (U6), 20126 Milano, Italy.
Department of Psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Piazza Ateneo Nuovo 1 (U6), 20126 Milano, Italy.
Infant Behav Dev. 2021 May;63:101558. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101558. Epub 2021 Apr 6.
Maternal touch is considered crucial in regulating infants' internal states when facing unknown or distressing situations. Here, we explored the effects of maternal touch on 7-month-old infants' preferences towards emotions. Infants' looking times were measured through a two-trial preferential looking paradigm, while infants observed dynamic videos of happy and angry facial expressions. During the observation, half of the infants received an affective touch (i.e., stroke), while the other half received a non-affective stimulation (i.e., fingertip squeeze) from their mother. Further, we assessed the frequency of maternal touch in the mother-infant dyad through The Parent-Infant Caregiving Touch Scale (PICTS). Our results have shown that infants' attention to angry and happy facial expressions varied as a function of both present and past experiences with maternal touch. Specifically, in the affective touch condition, as the frequency of previous maternal affective tactile care increased (PICTS), the avoidance of angry faces decreased. Conversely, in the non-affective touch condition, as the frequency of previous maternal affective tactile care increased (PICTS), the avoidance of angry faces increased as well. Thus, past experience with maternal affective touch is a crucial predictor of the regulatory effects that actual maternal touch exerts on infants' visual exploration of emotional stimuli.
母亲的触摸被认为在婴儿面对未知或令人痛苦的情况时对调节婴儿的内部状态至关重要。在这里，我们探讨了母亲的触摸对 7 个月大婴儿对情绪偏好的影响。通过双试验偏好注视范式测量婴儿的注视时间，同时婴儿观察快乐和愤怒面部表情的动态视频。在观察过程中，一半的婴儿接受来自母亲的情感触摸（即抚摸），而另一半则接受非情感刺激（即指尖挤压）。此外，我们通过母婴护理触觉量表（PICTS）评估母婴互动中母亲触摸的频率。我们的结果表明，婴儿对愤怒和快乐的面部表情的注意力会随着他们过去和现在与母亲触摸的经验而变化。具体来说，在情感触摸条件下，随着过去母亲情感触觉关怀的频率增加（PICTS），对愤怒面孔的回避减少。相反，在非情感触摸条件下，随着过去母亲情感触觉关怀的频率增加（PICTS），对愤怒面孔的回避也增加。因此，过去母亲情感触摸的经验是实际母亲触摸对婴儿对情绪刺激的视觉探索产生调节作用的关键预测因素。
