Barnett Whitney, Garon-Bissonnette Julia, Carrow Casey, Piersiak Hannah A, Bailes Lauren G, Ledgister Jada, Humphreys Kathryn L
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
Department of Public Health, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN, USA.
Dev Psychopathol. 2025 Apr 2:1-10. doi: 10.1017/S0954579425000185.
Emotion recognition, the ability to interpret others' emotional expressions and infer mental states, is crucial for caregiver-child interactions. The ability to accurately recognize infant emotions may facilitate attuned and responsive caregiving. Across two studies, we validate a novel measure to assess the recognition of infants' emotions (Reading the Mind in Infant Eyes Test [RMIET]) and investigate how this ability relates to observed caregiving. Study 1 examined item-level performance in 55 infant mental health experts and 100 undergraduate students. Study 2 examined RMIET scores in 133 pregnant people and their later caregiving when their children were 18-month-old. In Study 1, agreement was high among both mental health experts (ICC = .82) and undergraduate students (ICC = .93), providing evidence of the content validity of the RMIET. In Study 2, scores assessing the recognition of adult and infant emotions were positively correlated ( = .22, = .012). After accounting for covariates, RMIET scores were statistically significantly associated with higher sensitivity and warmth and lower negative regard. Taken together, these studies provide preliminary evidence of content and predictive validity for the RMIET.
情绪识别，即解读他人情绪表达并推断心理状态的能力，对于照顾者与儿童的互动至关重要。准确识别婴儿情绪的能力可能有助于提供协调且及时响应的照料。在两项研究中，我们验证了一种评估婴儿情绪识别能力的新方法（婴儿眼神心智解读测试 [RMIET]），并研究了这种能力与观察到的照料行为之间的关系。研究1考察了55名婴儿心理健康专家和100名本科生在项目层面的表现。研究2考察了133名孕妇及其孩子18个月大时她们随后的照料行为中的RMIET分数。在研究1中，心理健康专家（组内相关系数 = 0.82）和本科生（组内相关系数 = 0.93）的一致性都很高，这为RMIET的内容效度提供了证据。在研究2中，评估对成人和婴儿情绪识别的分数呈正相关（ = 0.22， = 0.012）。在考虑协变量后，RMIET分数与更高的敏感性和温暖度以及更低的负面关注在统计学上显著相关。综上所述，这些研究为RMIET的内容效度和预测效度提供了初步证据。
