Maternal behavior and infant attention

INFANT BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT 15, 209-229 (1992)

Maternal Behavior and Infant Attention

KATHARINE R. LAWSON, ROSEANNE PARRINELLO, AND HOLLY A. RUFF

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

The purpose of this study wos to investigote ossociotions between moternal behavior and 12-month-old infants’ attention to objects during a period of joint ploy. Both full terms (n = 90) and preterms (n = 59) were presented with a set of toys for independent play; their mothers then toined them for play with the same toys. No differences between full-term and preterm infants were found. Focused exploration of the objects was higher and active mottention was lower during the interaction than during independent play. The children were divided into high-, average-, and low-attending groups on the basis of their independent focused attention and active inattention; interaction with the mother resulted in the greatest increases in focused ottention ond greatest decreases in active inattention for the low ottenders. Multiple-regression analyses showed that focused attention and active inattention during the interaction were related to both the child’s spontaneous tendency to be attentive and specific maternal behaviors and characteristics. Further analyses suggest that certain maternal measures were associated with decreases in active inattention and increases in passive looking, whereas other maternol measures were assocrated with increases in the

more focused exploration of the objects by the child.

attention mother-child interaction exploration

maternal activity

inattention

During the second half of the first year, as infants become more proficient in reaching for, securing, and manipulating objects, they spend an increasing amount of time in object exploitation and play; Clarke-Stewart (1973) reported that her sample of 9- to 13-month-old infants spent about 37% of their waking time interacting with objects. Although young infants spend the majority of their time in the presence of their mothers (or primary caretaker), relatively little of this time may be spent in joint interaction around objects (Clarke-Stewart, 1973). Nonetheless, this joint object-directed attention is

The work reported here was supported by Grants MH38227 and MHO0652 from the National

Institute of Mental Health, and by a small grant from the Preventive Intervention Research

Center of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, MH38280. The research was also facilitated by

Grant HD01799 to the Rose F. Kennedy Center far Research in Mental Retardation and Human

Development. The authors wish to thank Mary Capozzoli for her help in all phases of the project

and Gerry Turkewitz for reading and commenting on earlier versions of the article.

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Katharine R. Lawson, Room 222,

Kennedy Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, NY

10461.

209

210 LAWSON, PARRINELLO, AND RUFF

generally viewed as very important to the infant, for example, as a basis for learning about object properties and functions (see, e.g., review by Lockman & McHale, 1989) and as a basis for referential communication and social learning (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984). Because these are critical aspects of development in this age range, mothers are likely to take active measures to encourage attention to objects.

Higher levels of infant functioning have been linked to maternal encour- agement of infant attention to objects at very early ages (Clarke-Stewart, 1973; Rubenstein, 1967; Ruddy & Bornstein, 1982; Tamis-LeMonda & Born- stein, 1990). Increased exploratory competence has been related to maternal responsiveness (Riksen-Walraven, 1978), maternal stimulation and sensitivity (Yarrow, Morgan, Jennings, Harmon, & Gaiter, 1982), and an autonomy- oriented maternal control style (Frodi, Bridges, & Grolnick, 1985). Belsky, Goode, and Most (1980) have demonstrated experimentally that increasing certain behaviors of the mother, in particular, physical focusing of the infant’s attention, can affect the young child’s later exploratory competence, as indexed by a composite score that included simple manipulation and more cognitively sophisticated functional and pretend play. The mother’s effectiveness may be related to her sensitivity to, and ability to adapt to, the child’s capacities and ongoing attention (Landry & Chapieski, 1989; Rocissano &’ Yatchmink, 1983).

To further extend findings from other studies with infants, we compared 12-month-olds’ attention to objects in two contexts: when the children played independently with objects and when they played with the same objects while interacting with the mother. This allowed us to explore potentially important interactions between the infant’s spontaneous tendency to be attentive and the mother’s activity. We expected such interactions because we found previously that infant spontaneous attention interacts with experimentally manipu- lated level of intervention (Parrinello & Ruff, 1988). Maternal intervention was indexed in several conceptually different ways; we measured the duration of each mother’s general involvement, the frequency of her specific teaching behaviors, and we also rated her behavior qualitatively. Together, the sets of measures provided us with a broad picture of maternal behavior. We thought, however, that the different types of measures might be differentially useful in relation to particular child behaviors.

On the basis of our previous work (see Ruff & Lawson, 1990), we think it is important to distinguish between focused attention to objects, on the one hand, and more cusual attention to the objects, on the other. The former declines with increased exposure to an object and recovers upon presentation of a novel object, whereas the latter does not (Ruff, Saltarelli, Capozzoli, & Dubiner, in press). We also have preliminary evidence that infants are less distractible when they are judged, on independent grounds, to be focused on exploring objects than when they are engaged more casually with the objects

ATTENTION AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR 211

(Saltarelli, Capozzoli, & Ruff, 1990). The distinction, therefore, may have implications for learning about objects, and mothers may encourage the two kinds of attention in different ways. We also think it is important to distinguish focused attention and inattenrion. Inattention is not merely a reciprocal of focused attention, and aspects of inattention show some consistency of individual differences in the early years (Ruff, Lawson, Parrinello, & Weissberg, 1990). During the first year, the frequency of dropping, throwing, and pushing objects is a measure of active inattention (Hutt, 1967; Ruff, 1984). Mothers may act quite differently to facilitate focused attention as opposed to discouraging active inattention.

Compared to full-terms, preterms early in their first year have been described as less responsive and attentive with their mothers; their mothers have been described as more active and stimulating (see Brown & Bakeman, 1979; Goldberg, Brachfeld, & DiVitto, 1980). Differences at the end of the first year and during the second year are less clear (see Crawford, 1982; Green- berg & Crnic, 1988; Landry, Chapieski, & Schmidt, 1986), but preterms are reported to be at increased risk for later problems with attention in the school setting (e.g., Barnard, Bee, & Hammond, 1984; Field, Dempsey, & Shuman, 1981; Klein, Hack, & Breslau, 1989). Because group differences could have important implications for development and intervention, the current study included preterm as well as full-term infants.

METHOD

As part of a larger study (Ruff et al., 1990; Ruff & Lawson, 1990), 12-month- old infants were tested in the laboratory with a short series of procedures designed to assess different aspects of attention and cognitive status. The procedures included administration of the Bayley Scales of Infant Develop- ment, a brief period of independent play, and a brief period of semistructured interaction with the mother, during which the mother was asked to help the child play with the same objects presented for independent play.

Subjects Subjects were 90 full-term children (49 male, 41 female) and 59 preterm children (27 male, 32 female). Criteria for selection of the full terms were normal weight and gestational age at birth and no reported perinatal compli- cations or impairments. Preterms were recruited from a longitudinal follow- up program; criteria for selection were an estimated gestational age at birth of less than 36 weeks, a birth weight of less than 2000 gms, and no known major neurological or sensory impairment. At birth, their mean age was 31.3 weeks (SD = 2.1) and their mean weight was 1278.6 gms (SD = 315.0 gms), and they were in the hospital a mean of 57.2 days (SD = 27.0 days) prior to discharge. For both full terms and preterms, an additional criterion for


inclusion of data in these analyses was a Bayley Mental Development Index greater than 83; 7 preterms and 2 full terms were excluded because of scores less than 84. The data from an additional 9 full terms and 16 preterms were lost either because of experimenter error in the videotaping or because scheduling precluded a mother-child interaction period. For those children included in the data analysis, the mean age at testing for the full terms was 368 days (SD = 7 days); the mean age for the preterms, corrected for gestational age, was 376 days (SD = 23 days).

Stimulus Objects Objects were selected to be of moderate interest and challenge. The objects were commercially available (Shelcore 9-in-l), graspable, brightly colored, plastic cup-shaped objects, each with a flat top containing a manipulable feature (e.g., dial, roller), manipulation of which provided auditory and/or visual feedback. For most infants, working the manipulable feature was somewhat difficult and could be facilitated by direction and/or teaching on an adult’s part. The moderate challenge, therefore, provided some structure for the mother’s efforts.

Procedures The infant sat on the mother’s lap at a desk facing the tester. The Bayley was administered first. The child was then presented with one of the objects described above for a 2-min period of free play; that object was then replaced by the other six objects presented simultaneously for another 2-min period of free play. With the objects still in front of the infant, the mother was asked to take a few minutes to teach her child how to work them. The task prestinted for the mother-child episode was designed to require the mother to structure the situation to some extent in order to teach the child but to allow her wide latitude in the interaction. The interaction period was 2 to 3 min in duration, and the first 2 min of the interaction were coded to provide a uniform base for measurement. For the analyses in this report, the infant’s attention during the 2-min period of free play with the multiple objects is used as the measure of independent attention because it is most comparable to the situation with the mother. It is also particularly appropriate to test the effects of interaction with the mother in a situation involving several objects, because, on their own, 12- month-olds are less organized with several objects than they are with one (Ruff & Lawson, 1990).

Except for the Bayley, all procedures were videotaped with a Sony porta- ble video recorder. The videotapes were scored for a variety of infant and maternal behaviors by an observer uninformed about the major questions of the study and the birth history of the individual children.

AllENTION AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR 213

Behavioral Measures There were three sets of measures of maternal behavior: (a) qualitative rating scales, (b) duration of general involvement, and (c) frequency of specific teaching behaviors. The ratings of qualitative aspects of the mother’s behavior were based on Spoint scales of (a) responsiveness or sensitivity to the child’s attention to the task, (b) pleasure or enjoyment of the child and the child’s activities, (c) intrusiveness or tendency to interfere with the child’s activities, and (d) physical restrictiveness or the tendency to physically limit the child’s actions by enclosing or holding the child’s body and/or hands. The general measure of maternal involvement was recorded as the duration of simultaneous physical and visual engagement with the task objects.’ The specific teaching behaviors were recorded as the frequency of the mother’s (a) pausing in her own actions on a target object and holding it within easy reach of the child, (b) demonstrating how to operate an object, (c) physically manipulating the child’s hands on the object, and (d) switching her focus and activity from one of the objects to another. Preliminary observation and scoring of a sample of tapes had indicated that these specific behaviors were predominant in the interactions.

In this report, we will refer to the child’s attention to the objects as assessed during free play as independent artention and the child’s attention during the mother-child episode as interactional attention. Independent attention was defined as the duration of active exploration and focused attention to the object; the judgment of independent attention/active exploration2 was based on a facial expression of concentration that usually occurred simultaneously with specific exploratory manipulations of the object (see Ruff, 1989, and Ruff & Lawson, 1990, for further discussion of criteria). Interac- tional attention was divided into two categories. Active exploration was defined as above. Looking was defined as the duration of visual orientation toward the object that the mother was working on or emphasizing with no accompanying manipulation on the infant’s part; there is no counterpart for this more passive watching in the period of independent play. As already mentioned, we scored both active exploration and more passive looking because of their potentially different implications for learning and potentially different associations with maternal behavior. It should be noted that during

’ Due to some problems with audio recording, a measure of duration of verbal involvement

(any task-related speech or nonspeech vocalization) was storable for only 102 children; prelimi-

nary analyses showed that this measure was not related to the infant’s behavior, and it is not

discussed further.

2 We have previously referred to the behavior of concentrated, active attention to objects as

examination and focused attention (Ruff, 1986, 1988; Ruff & Lawson, 1990); the term acrive exploration is used here because it permits easier contrast to the behavior of looking during

interaction, but it is measured in the same way.


the interaction period, the child might actively explore the objects or look at them while the mother was also actively involved with them; the duration of maternal involvement and the duration of child attention behaviors overlap. For both the independent and the interaction periods, active inattention was defined as the number of times that the child dropped, threw, or pushed the objects away. For both periods, the distribution of the frequency of dropping and throwing was highly skewed, and the frequencies were therefore trans- formed into natural logarithms before conducting any analyses.

Interrater reliability was assessed by having two people independently score the same infants. Based on groups of 10 to 15, and on the total duration or total frequency over a 2-min period, the Pearson correlation coefficients for focused exploration were .96 for the independent play and .92 for the period of interaction; for drop/throw/push, they were .93 and .94, respectively. The coefficients for the general and specific maternal behaviors ranged from .84 to .97. For each of the ratings, reliability on the basis of agreement within 1 interval was 100%.

RESULTS

The analyses were designed to address the following questions: (a) Was there a change in the infants’ focused attention and active inattention to the objects when their mothers joined them for play with the objects? Was this change different for the preterms and full terms? (b) Was the degree of observed change related to the infant’s tendency to be attentive/inattentive when playing independently? (c) In trying to predict attention during the period of interaction, what was the value of the child’s spontaneous tendency to be attentive, of different types of maternal behaviors and characteristics, and of interactions between these child and maternal measures? and (d) Did maternal behavior/characteristics differentially relate to focused exploration and more passive watching during the interaction?

Changes in Infant Attention From Independent to Interactional Play To answer the question of whether there was any change in the infants’ attention when the mothers played with them, we compared attention in the period of independent play with attention in the period of interaction. In two separate repeated-measures analyses of variance, duration of focused exploration and frequency of dropping and throwing the objects were entered as the dependent variables with condition (independent vs. interactional play) and group (preterm vs. full term) as the independent variables. The effect of condition was highly significant in each case. Duration of focused exploration was significantly higher during interactional than independent play, F(1, 147) = 19.0, p < .OOl. In contrast, the frequency of dropping and throwing was


significantly lower, F(1, 147) = 78.1, p < .OOl. The lack of main effects of group, F( 1, 147) < 1.0 and F( 1, 147) = 1.8, or of interactions between condition and group in both analyses, Fs(1, 147) < 1.0, indicates that change from one condition to the other is similar for both preterms and full terms.

See Table 1 for means and standard deviations for the whole group. It

TABLE 1

Measures of Attention ond Maternal Behoviors for 011 Subjects and for High, Averoge,

ond tow Attenders: Means and Standard Deviations

All High Average tow

Attention Measures

Independent

Focused explorotion (in seconds)

Drop/throw frequency

Interaction

Focused exploration

Drop/throw

Looking (in seconds)

Maternal Ratings

Responsrveness

Pleasure

Intrusiveness

Restrictiveness

Maternal Involvement

Maternal Teaching Behaviors

Pause/hold

Demonstrote

Switch object

Physical monipulation

13.9

(14.9)

9.2

(8.31

20.4

(12.0)

3.5

(4.1) 54.8

(15.8)

2.8 2.7

(1.1) (1.11 3.0 3.3

1’3.61 P.61 1.9 2.1

11.21 (1.3) 3.1 3.2

(0.9) (0.8)

80.1

(23.1)

7.6

(4.6) 10.9

(4.01 4.7

(2.1) 2.6

(3.4)

24.5

(17.9)

3.2

(3.51

24.5

(13.2)

1.8

i2.6) 57.6

(14.5)

79.7

(24.8)

7.4

(4.41 10.3

(3.61 4.0

(2.11 2.8

(3.3)

12.7

(11.9)

7.1

(5.0)

19.4

(11.7)

3.5

(3.91 54.4

(17.3)

2.7

(1.11 2.9

IO.61 1.8

11.1) 3.0

(0.9)

78.9

(24.0)

7.3

(4.4) 10.7

(4.3) 4.7

(2.2) 2.2

(3.61

5.0

(5.2) 17.2

(8.01

17.3

(10.0)

5.1

(4.9) 52.6

(15.2)

2.8

Il.01 2.9

(0.61 1.7

(1.21 3.2

10.9)

81.9

(20.6)

7.9

(5.0) 11.5

(4.11 5.3

(1.9) 2.6

(3.41

Note. Stondord deviations oppear in porentheses.


might be argued that focused attention increased and dropping and throwing decreased because the interaction period came after the period of independent play. However, focused exploration declined significantly from the first half to the second half of the independent play period (MS = 7.6 and 6.3), F(1, 148) = 3.8, p < .05, and dropping and throwing increased (MS = 4.2 and 5.1), F(1, 148) = 5.8, p < .05. The direction of these effects suggests that continued exposure to the objects, in the absence of intervention, would have led to an even further decrement in attentiveness (Ruff & Lawson, 1990). The results suggest, therefore, that interaction with the mother does act to increase attentiveness.

There is evidence that the level of stimulation entailed in adult intervention can affect children differentially in relation to the child’s spontaneous level of attention (Parrinello & Ruff, 1988). To explore whether interaction with the mother in this study had similar differential effects, we divided the infants into thirds on the basis of a combined score based on the duration of focused attention and frequency of dropping and throwing the objects while playing independently. The formation of groups was based on the data from independent play with both the single-object and multiple-object trials to give us a more reliable estimate of spontaneous attention. We then looked to see how the attention of these three groups changed from independent play with the multiple objects to interaction with the mother. Our previous work led to the expectation that interaction with the mother would be associated with more change in the behavior of infants who show spontaneously low levels of attention.

To form the groups, we converted duration of focused attention and frequency of dropping and throwing the objects into standard scores, sub- tracted the latter from the former, and then divided the ranked sums into three equal groups. The high attenders (n = 49) during independent play showed a range of 25.3 s to 138.7 s of focused attention and a frequency of 0 to 15 drop/throws of the objects. The average attenders (n = 50) during independent play showed a range of 0.0 s to 77.4 s of focused attention and a frequency of 1 to 31 drop/throws of the objects. The low attenders (n = 50) during independent play showed a range of 1.0 s to 43.7 s focused attention and 11 to 57 drop/throws of the objects. The three subgroups did not differ in MD1 (104.9, 103.6, and 104.5, respectively), in the distribution of preterms and full terms (31FI’/18PT, 30FV20PT. 29FT/21PT, respectively), or in the proportion of males and females (27F/22M, 19F/31M, 30F/20M, respectively), all Fs < 1.0.

Examination of the means and standard deviations presented in Table 1 suggests that the low attenders showed more marked changes than the high attenders. The high attenders showed a relatively stable duration of focused exploration, whereas the low attenders showed a sharp and significant increase in this measure; the change brought the low attenders up close to the mean of the whole group. The high attenders showed little change in drop-

AllENTlON AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR 217

ping and throwing, whereas the low attenders dropped and threw the objects much less during the interaction period. In this case, the high attenders are still below, and the low attenders, above, the mean for the whole group. To evaluate these results statistically, two repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted with group (high, average, and low attenders) as the independent variable. For both focused exploration and dropping and throwing, the critical interactions between condition and group were highly significant, F(2, 146) = 6.0, p < .OOl, and F(2, 146) = 11.2, p < .OOl, respectively. Analyses of simple main effects for each group indicated that active exploration increased significantly for the low and intermediate groups, F(1. 49) = 65.5, p < .OOl, and F(1, 49) = 9.2, p = .004, but not for the high attenders, F( 1,48) < 1 .O. Frequency of drop/throw decreased significantly and markedly for the low attenders, F( 1, 49) = 94.1, p < .OOl, significantly but less for the average attenders, F(1, 49) = 24.5, p < .OOl, and still less for the high attenders, F(1,48) = 6.9, p < .Ol. Because the degree of change for the high and low attenders was clearly asymmetrical, regression to the mean as an explanation seems unlikely. In addition, ceiling effects seem an unlikely explanation of the lack of change in focused attention for the high attenders: Even the high attenders showed focused exploration for only a mean of approximately 25 s of a possible 120 s; although the mothers were actively involved themselves for a mean of approximately 80 s, one component of the mothers’ involvement-holding the object within reach of the child- potentially promoted rather than precluded active exploration.

Examination of the mothers’ behaviors with the three groups suggests that qualitative aspects of their behavior are directly related to the changes in attention shown by the three groups from independent to interactional play (see Table 2, p. 219). That is, the mothers differed only on the qualitative ratings, multivariate F(8, 286) = 2.9, p < .004. The mothers of the high attenders were judged to show more pleasure than the mothers of either the intermediate or low attenders. Neither maternal involvement generally nor the set of teaching behaviors was significantly different for the three groups, F(2, 146) < 1.0, and F(8, 286) = 1.5. respectively. Our instructions to the mothers encouraged them to teach the children how to work the objects and may have encouraged mothers of the high attenders to be more active than was necessary for those children, as these mothers were as actively involved as the mothers of children who were spontaneously less attentive. Because there were no differences in quantitative measures between the three groups, it is possible that the low attenders required only an average amount of intervention, not extra amounts, to become more attentive.

The differential changes from independent play to the interaction period in the three groups suggests that there is an interaction between the child’s spontaneous tendency to be attentive and the mother’s behavior. The nature of specific associations between different types of maternal behaviors and independent attention/inattention is addressed in the next section.


Predictive Value of Maternal Measures for Infant Attention The goal of the following analyses was to analyze the predictive value of the different types of maternal measures for focused exploration and dropping/ throwing during interaction. Specifically, we asked (a) whether particular maternal measures were differentially associated with infants’ attention and inattention during the interaction, and (b) whether there were any relationships between attention/inattention during the interaction and the interaction of the mothers’ behavior and the children’s independent tendency to attend (baseline).

Although the previous analyses did not reveal any differences between preterm and full-term infants on the dependent measures in either condition, preliminary analyses were conducted to determine whether it would be rea- sonable to combine the preterm and full-term groups for the following correlational analyses. First, we found no differences between the two groups on the independent variables, that is, the measures of maternal behavior. Sec- ond, because the full terms had significantly higher MDIs than the preterms (MS = 107.8 vs. 99.0), F(1, 147) = 36.1, p < .OOl, we conducted preliminary analyses of relationships between infant attention and maternal behavior with and without MD1 controlled; the overall results, however, were no different.” The data for all subjects were therefore combined for the rest of the data analyses.

To answer the two questions raised above, we tested the association of each set of maternal variables with each of the two dependent variables. Maternal variables were entered into multiple-regression analyses as sets of measures which might be related in different ways to the dependent measures of attention. We treated the maternal variables as sets because they were conceptually different and to reduce the number of analyses and the proba- bility of spuriously significant results. The strategy was to first regress the relevant baseline data on each dependent variable. We then added one of the sets of maternal variables (ratings, general involvement, or specific teaching behaviors) to see whether the R2 was significantly increased. Next, we tested a model for each of the possible interactions between the maternal variables in the set and the baseline measure. If any of these equations, which also included the main effects, represented a further significant increase in R’, then it was accepted as the best model. If none of the equations that included interaction terms led to a significant increase, the accepted model excluded interactions. Table 2 presents the end products of these analyses for focused

3 To explore further possible differences within the preterm group, the preterms were cate-

gorized into high- and low-risk groups by the number of days in the hospital after birth and prior

to discharge (M = 84 days, range: 56-151 vs. M = 40 days, range: 16-54). When the analyses of

variance were redone with risk as the group factor, there still were no main effects of group or

interactions between group and condition.

AllENTlON AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR 219

TABLE 2 Associations Between Maternal Behavior and Infant Attention

Adjusted

R R2 F df P Contributor pro

Focused Exploration

Ratings +

Independent ottention +

Involve +

Independent attention

Teach behavior +

Independent attention +

Pause/hold x

independent ottention

.43 .16

.25 .05

.54 .26

6.5 5, 143 < ,001 lndep Att .19*

Responsive .30***

4.9 2, 146 = ,008 lndep Att .16+

Involvement .22**

9.9 6, 142 < ,001 lndep Att .24**

Pause/Hold .40***

Demonstrote -.15+

Phys Manip - .25’*

Switch Object -.18

P/H x Ind Att (t=2.3*)

Drop/Throw

Ratings + .51 .23 9.8 5, 143 < .OOl lndep Drop .36***

Independent drop Responsive - .22”

Intrusive - .26”

Restrictive - .24*

Involve + .44 .19 17.9 2, 146 < ,001 lndep Drop .36***

Independent drop Involvement - .35***

Teach behovior + .48 .20 8.4 5, 143 < ,001 lndep Drop .32***

Independent drop Pause/Hold - .23*

Switch Object .18*

~The contributors listed here are those which made a significant contribution with the other voriobles controlled for; the contribution therefore is unique.

l p < .05. ** p < .Ol. *** p < ,001.

exploration and for drop/throw. Note that the R’s presented in the tables and text are adjusted for the number of variables.

Focused Exploration. As can be seen in the table, the qualitative ratings plus the duration of independent focused exploration accounted for 16% of the variance of interactional focused exploration; the baseline data and maternal responsiveness made the only unique contributions. The infant’s focused exploration was positively related to the mother’s tendency to be responsive but was not related to the degree of her restrictiveness, intrusiveness, or pleasure during the interaction. Simultaneous haptic and visual involvement by the mother, regardless of specific activity, accounted for a small but significant 5% of the variance.

Independent focused exploration plus the set of specific teaching behaviors plus an interaction between pause/hold and independent exploration accounted for 26% of the variance. The child’s spontaneous tendency to ac-


tively explore the objects and the frequency of the mother’s pausing in her own actions and holding the object within easy reach of the infant made unique positive contributions to the degree of focused exploration during the interaction. The frequencies of demonstrating, switching objects, and physically manipulating the infant’s hands each made a unique negative contribution. While pausing and holding the object for the child would facilitate active exploration by the child, the other three behaviors are incompatible with simultaneous focused exploration by the child. In that sense, demonstrating, switching objects, and physically manipulating the child’s hands compete with the infant’s own activity. However, because the observed durations of maternal involvement (M = 80.1 s) and infant focused exploration (M = 20.4 s) were less than the time available (120 s) and because focused exploration could occur during some maternal involvement, it does not seem likely that the results are due only to competition for available time.

The interaction between pause/hold and the child’s independent exploration was probed by dividing the entire group into thirds on the basis of independent exploration. For each of these groups, we then correlated focused exploration during the interaction with the frequency of the mother’s pausing and holding the object. For the lowest and middle thirds, the correlations were .58 and .56, p < .OOl, respectively, both of which were significamly higher, p < .Ol, than the correlation for the highest third, r = .08. These data provide further indication that the attention of independently attentive children is not as reliably associated with their mothers’ behaviors during interactive play as is the attention of less attentive children. On the whole, however, the child’s spontaneous tendency to be attentive and the mother’s behavior are both predictive of interactional attention without interacting in any obvi- ous way.

Dropping and Throwing. Table 2 shows that the set of ratings, the general measure of involvement, and the specific teaching behaviors in conjunction with the child’s spontaneous tendency to engage in such active inattention accounted for 23%, 19%, and 20%, respectively, of the variance. Addition of the interaction terms did not increase the R’ significantly. Maternal responsiveness, intrusiveness, and physical restrictiveness all made unique and negative contributions to the frequency of dropping and throwing, whereas independent dropping and throwing contributed positively. That is, frequency of dropping/throwing during interaction was positively related to the child’s independent tendency to drop and throw the objects and negatively related to maternal responsiveness, intrusiveness, and physical restrictiveness. Frequen- cy of dropping/throwing during interaction was also negatively related to maternal involvement. In terms of specific behaviors, frequency of dropping/ throwing during interaction was negatively related to maternal pause/hold of the object and positively related to switching from one object to the next. The

AnENTlON AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR 221

results suggest that interaction with the mother is associated with decreased dropping and throwing when the mother is both responsive and gives the child an opportunity to explore independently and also actively controls the situation and restricts the child’s range of motion. The fact that mothers switched objects more often if their infants dropped and threw the objects more may be a necessary relationship because, to the extent that the mother was interested in keeping her child’s visual attention on the objects, she would have had to turn to another object if the target object was thrown.

These analyses are useful in suggesting particular ways in which maternal behaviors in conjunction with the spontaneous tendencies of the children predict different levels of attentiveness of 12-month-old infants to objects. Although the infants’ tendencies to be attentive were positively related to their attentiveness during interaction, only one particular interaction between this spontaneous tendency and maternal behavior appeared.

Interaction and Focused Exploration Versus Looking Because there was no counterpart to looking or watching in the period of independent play, an analysis using baseline values from the period of independent play and interaction terms was not appropriate. We therefore conducted three multiple-regression analyses, one for each set of maternal behaviors, using looking during the interaction as the dependent variable. Table 3 shows that the qualitative ratings accounted for 24% of the variance in looking. The mother’s intrusiveness and physical restrictiveness both made unique and positive contributions to looking. The contribution of responsiveness was marginal. General involvement was a significant predictor of looking, accounting for 21% of the variance. The specific teaching behaviors accounted for about 14% of the variance, with the frequency of demonstrations and the frequency of physically manipulating the child’s hands making positive unique contributions.

TABLE 3

Contributors to Looking

Adiusted

R R2 F df P Contributor pr”

Looking

Ratings -51 .24 12.5 4, 144 < ,001 Restrictive .38***

Intrusive .22"

Involvement .46 .21 39.2 1, 147 < .OOl

Teaching Behovior .40 .14 7.0 4, 144 < ,001 Demonstrote .19*

Phys Manip .36***

“The contributors listed here are those which made o significant contribution with the other

variables controlled for; the contribution therefore is unique. * p < .05. ** p < .Ol. *** p < .OOl.


Thus, looking was directly related to the degree that the mother physically enclosed or limited the infant’s visual field and range of action, the degree to which she interfered with the child’s own actions, and the degree to which she herself was physically active with the objects. This is in sharp contrast to the results presented above for focused exploration,’ and the difference in results confirm our contention that focused exploration and looking are different types of attention and are differentially related to maternal behavior during interaction. It should be noted that some further support for the differentiation of focused exploration and looking is suggested in the failure to find any differences in duration of looking in the interaction period for the high, average, and low attenders, F(2, 146) = 1.3 (see Table 1).

The Measurement of Maternal Behavior The goal of this study was not to address measurement issues, and we used a variety of measures of maternal behavior designed to assess a range of both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the mothers’ behavior. The sets of maternal measures were conceptually different and were not designed to be mutually exclusive; the matrix of intercorrelations in Table 4 shows that the measures were, in fact, statistically related. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this matrix is the extent to which the rating of maternal responsiveness And the duration of general involvement were related to the other variables; the mean bivariate correlations were .47 and .38, respectively. The level of intercorrelation in the matrix raises the question of whether the effects could be captured by fewer variables.

To explore this issue, we entered, for each dependent variable, all the potential contributors to that variable into a single multiple-regression equa- tion. We included the baseline measures for focused exploration and dropping/throwing, both of which made unique contributions as before. For focused exploration, all the measures combined accounted for 26% of the variance. The frequency of pause/hold made a significant positive unique contribution, partial correlation (pr) = .26, whereas the frequency of demonstrating and physical manipulation of the child’s hands on the object made significant unique negative contributions, prs = - .17 and - .25. Maternal involvement and responsitivity dropped out as unique contributors, probably because they were intercorrelated with several of the other independent variables. For drop/throw, all the measures combined accounted for 26% of the variance. Maternal switching of the object made a unique positive contribution, pr = .18, and maternal intrusiveness and physical restrictiveness made unique negative contributions, pr = - .23 and - .16, respectively. Responsiveness, general involvement, and pause/hold failed to contribute

’ An analysis comparable td the one in Table 3 was performed for focused exploration; the

results were virtually the same as those shown in Table 2.

TABL

E 4

Inter

corre

lation

s Am

ong

Mote

rnol

Voria

bles

Phys

ical

Switc

h

Resp

onsiv

enes

s Ple

asure

Int

rusiv

e Re

strict

Inv

olvem

ent

Paus

e/Hold

De

mon

strate

M

onipu

lote

Obje

ct

Resp

onsiv

enes

s Ple

asure

Intru

sive

Restr

ict

Involv

emen

t

Paus

e/Hold

Dem

onstr

ote

Phys

ical

Mon

ipulat

e

Switc

h Ob

iect

51"

-A9 .2

9 .4

3

52

.oo

.Ol

-.39

-

-.2a .I5

.11

-

.1 1

.0

3 .4

a -

.1 1

-.1

5 .3

1 .6

9 -

-.lO

-.02

.08

.25

.3Q

-.04

.26

.I7

.21

.04

-.33

-

-.29

.17

.05

-.2Q

-.25

.37

-.06

-

Note.

N

= 14

9.

a Co

rrelot

ions

in bo

ld ore

sig

nifica

nt be

yond

the

.05

lev

el


TABLE 5

Pattern of Relationships Between Three Measures of Attention

and Maternal BehaviorKharactenstics

Focused Exploration Looking Dropping/Throwing

Responsiveness

Pleasure

Intrusiveness

Restrictiveness

Involvement

Pause/Hold

Demonstrote

Physical Manipulate

Switch Object

I+) ns.

ns. n.s.

n.s. (+I ns. +

(+I +

+ ns.

(+I +

i-1 fl.5.

i-1 n.s. -

i-1 i-1 n.s.

n.s.

t

Note. + = a positive contribution in the multiple-regressron analyses; - = a negative contribution; ( ) = a significant contribution when tested in separote sets of maternal behaviors but not unique when entered with 011 variables simultaneously; n.s. = a nonsignificant contribution.

uniquely when entered with the other variables. Finally, for looking, all the maternal variables combined accounted for 33% of the variance. The rating of physical restrictiveness, the duration of involvement, and the frequency of physical manipulation of the child’s hands made positive unique contributions, prs = .29, .25, and .23, respectively, and the frequency of pause/hold made a significant negative contribution, pr = - .18. Intrusiveness dropped out as a significant contributor, and pause/hold emerged as significant and unique.

Despite the interrelationships among the maternal measures, the analyses suggest that most of them were helpful in explaining some portion of the data. With the exception of the ratings of maternal responsiveness and maternal pleasure, all other variables contributed uniquely to the variance of at least one of the measures of infant attention. Table 5 presents a tabular summary of the different patterns of associations with the three different dependent measures.

DISCUSSION

In this study, when mothers joined their infants for play with several objects, there were marked and significant increases in the duration of focused attention and decreases in inattention as indexed by dropping and throwing the objects. The data argue against regression to the mean, ceiling, or floor effects, or an effect of continued exposure to the objects as explanations of the changes; the most likely explanation is the nature of the interaction,

AUENTION AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR 225

particularly the introduction of the mother’s activity. In order to explore the possible ways in which these changes came about, we examined the relationships between maternal behavior and infant attention during the interaction period. The infant’s attention to objects during the interaction was associated with maternal behavior as well as the infants’ tendency to be attentive. The results can best be interpreted as showing that the infant’s attention to the objects during joint play with the mother is a product of the interaction.

Furthermore, we had expected that the mother’s behavior would interact with the infant’s spontaneous tendencies toward attention/inattention to determine how attentive the infant would be during interaction (Parrinello & Ruff, 1988; see also Gandour, 1989). When our subjects were divided into high-, average-, and low-attending groups on the basis of independent attention and inattention, the effect of the interaction was significantly different for the three groups. That is, the degree of change of both focused attention and dropping/throwing from the independent play period to the interactional play period differed significantly across groups. The interaction was particularly effective in changing the behavior of the low attenders, so that their focused attention increased and drop/throw decreased, in contrast to the high attenders, who remained relatively stable. In the multiple-regression analyses, consideration of the specific contributions of the interaction of each maternal measure and child independent attention/inattention revealed only one interaction between independent focused exploration and the frequency with which the mother paused and held the object. The mother’s behavior was not related to the attention of infants who spontaneously exhibited a relatively high level of focused exploration; there was, however, a moderately high relationship for those infants who exhibited low or moderate levels of spontaneous focused exploration. The results suggest the importance of individual differences among infants in mediating effects of interaction with the mother, providing general support for the importance of “organismic specificity” as a mediator of effects of the environment (see Wachs, 1987).

Our maternal measures were grouped into three conceptually different sets to compare the predictive value of the sets for each aspect of child attention/ inattention; the sets might be differentially useful for future studies concen- trating on particular aspects of attention. The predictive value of all the maternal measures together was also explored. Overall, the results suggest that the ratings were more useful in predicting active inattention or the frequency of dropping and throwing the objects, whereas the specific behaviors were more useful in predicting focused exploration.

We had also hypothesized that, during interaction, maternal behaviors would be differentially associated with two kinds of attention to the objects. Interaction with an adult could facilitate the child’s own focused exploration and interaction with objects or it could recruit more passive attention, that is, watching. The results suggest that the mothers’ restrictiveness and intrusive-


ness were positively associated with the degree of looking as was the frequency with which the mothers demonstrated the objects’ properties and took the infant’s hands to go through the appropriate manipulations of the objects. The latter two variables were related negatively to focused exploration, suggesting that more direct activity on the objects by the mothers themselves was associated with more passivity of the infant. The other variables positively associated with looking, intrusiveness and physical restrictiveness, however, were not related to focused exploration but were related negatively to dropping and throwing. Again, these results suggest that physical restrictiveness of the mother can be associated differentially with increased looking and decreased active inattention without necessarily being associated with the more active, focused forms of attention (see Table 5). The design of this study does not allow us to draw any conclusions about what the infants were learning about the objects during the interaction; thus, we cannot say that the infants learn less during watching than during active, focused manipulation of the objects. It is possible, however, that the mothers who facilitate the infants’ own active attention to the objects are helping their infants to learn more, to be more competent, and to take more pleasure in their own mastery of objects and problems.

The number of observed relationships between maternal behaviors and infant attention contrasts with an earlier study (Maccoby, Snow, & Jackliri, 1984) where no relationship between maternal teaching efforts and concur- rent child task-oriented activity was found at 12 months. This difference is probably due to the fact that the mothers in that study were specifically prohibited from touching the objects, whereas in the current study, it was primarily “hands on” activities of the mother which were associated with the child’s attention. We report here general associations for the entire period of interaction. The nature of specific associations might differ if timing were tracked, both with regard to increasing exposure to the objects and also with regard to the beginning, maintenance, and termination of single episodes of attention. For example, Landry et al. (1986) reported some differences in the effectiveness of selected maternal behaviors in eliciting manipulation, and Landry and Chapieski (1989) reported that the effectiveness of maternal behaviors may be related to their specific timing relative to the infant’s ongoing attentional focus.

The failure to find differences between the preterm and full-term infants in our measures of attention and maternal behavior is in accord with other reports. For example, Brachfeld, Goldberg, and Sloman (1980) compared the free play of sick preterms, healthy preterms, and healthy full terms at 8 and 12 months. Of direct relevance to the current study is their finding that, although amount of toy play and parent demonstrations were significantly different at 8 months, these differences had disappeared by 12 months; in fact, by 12 months, very few group differences were evident. Landry et al. (1986) also reported no differences between preterms and full terms in attention or in

AnENTlON AND MATERNAL BEHAVIOR 227

their mothers’ nonverbal attention-directing techniques at 12 months. The lack of significant differences in infant and maternal behaviors in the current study does not, of course, preclude differences in more subtle components of focused attention which have been reported for younger high-risk preterms (Ruff, 1988). It is possible that by 12 months, preterms, even those at higher risk, have “caught up” with respect to the manner of focusing on and learning about their environment.

Taken as a whole, these results suggest that interaction with the mother results in an increase in attention, but only for some infants. Effects are clearly reciprocal. From the standpoint of the child, one possibility is that some children, even at this young age, are better able to motivate and regulate themselves and that intervention does not facilitate their already competent activity (Gandour, 1989). Alternatively, such well-regulated children may have more control over situations in which they are interacting with adults and may tip the balance toward less adult activity and more indepen- dence for themselves; although in this study the lack of differences in level of adult intervention with the high, intermediate, and low attenders does not support this alternative, informal observation of the individual children cer- tainly suggested marked differences in desire and competence for independent action. Explanations for the potential role that interaction with the mother plays remain to be explored. Facilitation of attention may be achieved through a variety of means. The mother’s activity may increase arousal and introduce new information, hence increasing curiosity and motivation to explore; for example. the mother’s changing of perspective on a given object or bringing a new object into focus may provoke a change in state for some infants. Modeling actions, as in demonstrations, are likely to be particularly salient for 12-month-old infants whose imitative capacities are recently devel- oped. Physical intervention and support may enable the infant to carry out more sophisticated exploratory behaviors than would be possible without such external support; for example, firm bimanual exploration of a relatively large object may be beyond the physical capacities of some infants at this age, so that the mother’s holding of the object may permit active exploration. In each case, optimal results would depend on a level of intervention that is adapted to the individual infant’s needs, both the immediate needs which may change over the course of increasing familiarization with an object and longer term needs which are more related to developmental level.

In summary, the present study documents relationships between both the child’s spontaneous tendencies to be attentive and the mother’s behavior for the child’s attention to objects during interactive play. Future studies need to probe further the nature of the interaction between infant tendencies and maternal behavior and characteristics, especially if spontaneous levels of attentiveness represent a stable dimension of individual variation; they need also to refine our understanding of what is learned in the more active and more passive types of attention.


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17 August 1990; Revised 22 May 1991 n

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Maternal behavior and infant attention