Happy Faces Depressed Mothers Article

8/9/2019 Happy Faces Depressed Mothers Article

1/5

Infant Behavior & Development 29 (2006) 131135

Brief report

Happy faces are habituated more slowlyby infants of depressed mothers

Maria Hernandez-Reifa,, Tiffany Field a, Miguel Diego a,Yanexy Vera a, Jeff Pickens b

a Touch Research Institutes, Department of Pediatrics, University of Miami School of Medicine,

PO Box 016820 (D-820), Miami, FL 33101, USAb St. Thomas University, Department of Psychology, Miami, FL, USA

Received 18 March 2005; received in revised form 19 July 2005; accepted 20 July 2005

Abstract

Three-month-old infants of depressed (n = 16) and non-depressed mothers (n = 16) were habituated to video clips of a female

model reciting phrases while posing happy or sad facial/vocal expressions and dishabituated to the alternate expressions. Overall,

infants of depressed mothers took longer to habituate the video clips compared to infants of non-depressed mothers, and those

assigned to habituate the sad video clips displayed a novelty response or dishabituated to the happy expressions. These findings

suggest that 3-month-old infants of depressed mothers discriminate sad from happy expressions, however, they do not appear to

perceive sad expressions as novel.

2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Infants; Depressed mothers; Facial expression; Habituation

Neonates experience many faces and voices and within a few months, they display a range of expressions from

smiling and positive vocalizations to frowning, protesting and looking away. Typically, mothers expressions are the first

expressions that infants experience (Montague & Walker-Andrews, 2002; Nelson, Morse, & Leavitt, 1979), and they

come to expect a variety of expressions. Infants have been noted to behave negatively and show greater gaze aversion

when their mothers are expressionless or still-face during a face-to-face interaction (Gusella, Muir, & Tronick, 1988;

Stack, 2004), or when mothers are instructed to behave depressed (Cohn & Tronick, 1983). In contrast, infants of

depressed mothers under the same conditions behave the same regardless of whether their mothers were asked to

spontaneously play with their infants or were asked to behave depressed (Field, 1984).

In one study, involving mothers and strangers acting out live mock happy, surprise and sad facial expressions

(15 s each), 3- to 6-month-old infants of depressed mothers were less likely to look at the facial expressions displayed

by both their mother and a stranger, regardless of the affective display ( Diego et al., 2004). In a habituation study

newborns of depressed mothers took longer to habituate their mothers face ( Hernandez-Reif, Field, Diego, & Largie,

2002). These findings suggest that infants of depressed mothers may be slower at processing facial information, may

have difficulty discriminating facial expressions, or may be less interested in looking at faces.

Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Hernandez-Reif).

0163-6383/$ see front matter 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2005.07.003


2/5

132 M. Hernandez-Reif et al. / Infant Behavior & Development 29 (2006) 131135

In the current study, we examined 3-month-old infants habituation of happy and sad facial/vocal expressions.

We expected that infants of depressed mothers would take longer to habituate the facial/vocal expressions if they

had difficulty attending to or learning facial expressions. We also hypothesized that because sad expressions may be

more novel for infants of non-depressed mothers, they may take longer to habituate the sad facial/vocal expressions

than the happy facial/vocal expressions. This view is also consistent with at least one study that found that infants of

non-depressed mothers looked longer at sad facial expressions than infants of depressed mothers (Field, Pickens, Fox,

Gonzalez, & Nawrocki, 1998). In contrast, because infants of depressed mothers are familiar with sad expressions, weexpected them to look longer at happy expressions.

1. Method

Thirty-nine mothers (Mage = 28 years) and their 3-month-old infants (Mage = 107.5 days) (n = 16 from depressed

mothers) participated in this study. The infants were typically developing, full-term healthy. The mothers were recruited

prenatally from a larger sample participating in a longitudinal study on maternal depression. The study had full

institutional review board approval by the university, and the women signed consent forms prior to being screened for

eligibility. Inclusion criteria included: (1) singleton pregnancy and (2) 1835 years of age. Mothers were excluded if

they: (1) had pregnancy complications (e.g., diabetes, hypertension, etc.), (2) self-reported drug or alcohol use during

pregnancy, (3) had HIV or AIDS, and/or (4) had a mental disorder, other than depression or depression and co-morbidanxiety (women with bipolar disorder were not recruited).

Pre- and postnatally, the mothers were asked to complete the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale

(CES-D; Radloff, 1977), which has a range of scores from 0 to 60, with 16 being the cutpoint for depressive symptoms.

Infants were assigned to a depressed (CES-D 16) or non-depressed group (CES-D = 312) based on their mothers

CES-Dscore.Only mothers whodid notcrossover (e.g.,from being depressed during pregnancy to being non-depressed

at 3-months or vice-versa) and who did not fall in the faking good (CES-D 2) or borderline range (CES-D = 1315)

were recruited for the study.

The habituation stimuli consisted of four video clips of happy and sad facial/vocal expressions depicted in one

set (one happy and one sad video clip) by a brunette and in the other by a blonde woman. The women models were

videotaped from the neck up, and both had shoulder length hair and no jewelry. The models looked directly into the

camera and pretended to speak to a baby as they recited the same phrases for 6 min. The phrases recited were Hellobaby . . . look at me baby . . . thats a good baby. . . . Can you smile for me? . . . Thats a good baby. For the happy

video clips, the women smiled and used motherese, or high pitched voices while reciting the phrases. For the sad video

clips, the women used a monotone voice, and their facial expressions were flat.

The habituation procedure was conducted in a semi-dark laboratory room, with the infant facing a television monitor

mounted on a cart. Half of the infants in each group were habituated to the happy video (brunette or blonde woman)

and dishabituated to the sad video of the same woman, and the other half of the infants in each group received the

reverse order.

A trained experimenter monitored infant looking during habituation through a cardboard peephole and (1) ini-

tiated the trial, (2) recorded infant looking and (3) determined when to terminate the trial. A trial was terminated

when the infant looked away from the screen for longer than a second, or after 60 s had elapsed of the infant

looking at the screen. Successive trials with the same video continued until looking on two consecutive trials

fell below 50% of baseline (habituation criterion). Baseline was computed as the average looking time for thefirst two trials of habituation. After the infant met the habituation criterion, two post-habituation trials were pro-

vided using the same video. The post-habituation trials served to control for spontaneous recovery, which has been

reported following habituation (Bertenthal, Haith, & Campos, 1983). The post-habituation trials thus ensured that

the infant had habituated and also served as the comparison trials for the test (novel) trials. Following the post-

habituation trials, the infant received two novel test trials with the same model presenting the opposite expression.

Infant looking throughout the procedure was videotaped and later used to compute interobserver reliability, which

reached .93

The following summary scores were calculated for each infant and then averaged across each group to serve as

the dependent measures: (1) average looking on first two trials (baseline looking), (2) habituation length, or total

seconds to reach the habituation criterion, (3) number of trials to reach habituation, (4) average looking on the two

post-habituation trials, (5) average looking on the two novel test trials and (6) difference score, computed by subtracting


3/5

M. Hernandez-Reif et al. / Infant Behavior & Development 29 (2006) 131135 133

Table 1

Mean (and standard deviation in parenthesis) for habituation trials for infants of depressed vs. non-depressed mothers who habituated to the happy

vs. the sad film

Variables Infant group t-test (p-value)

Depressed Non-depressed

Habituation to happy filmBaseline 40.2 (17.4) 27.3 (12.3) .05

Sec to habituation 146.8 (49.4) 103.9 (48.4) .05

Number of trials to habituation 6.3 (2.2) 7.6 (1.9) .10

Post-habituation trial (s) 18.0 (10.2) 6.7 (4.8) .01

Test trials (sad) (s) 15.6 (10.7) 11.9 (10.6) .50

Difference Score (test minus posthab) 2.4 (10.2) 5.3 (11.2) .18

Habituation to sad film

Baseline 34.2 (16.2) 37.5 (18.7) .72

Sec to habituation 136.9 (69.3) 95.7 (36.8) .08

Number of trials to habituation 7.0 (2.2) 6.6 (3.0) .78

Post-habituation trial (s) 8.4 (5.7) 15.3 (13.3) .20

Test trials (happy) (s) 18.0 (15.2) 25.3 (19.7) .42

Difference Score (test minus posthab) 9.6 (12.5) 10.1 (11.6) .94

score 4 from score 5. A positive difference score indicated a novelty preference or greater looking during the novel test

trials compared to the post-habituation trials, suggesting that the infant discriminated the two expressions. A negative

difference score indicated afamiliarity preference, or a preference for the post-habituation trials and less looking during

the novel trials. A zero difference score indicated null preference or equal looking to the post-habituation and novelty

test trials.

2. Results

The data for seven infants were rejected due to infant fussiness/crying (n = 4), experimenter error (n = 2) and unable

to habituate (n = 1). The background characteristics of those whose data were omitted did not differ from those of

the sample that was retained for the study (all ps > .10). Except for the CES-D score, which was used to classify

the depressed and non-depressed groups, the two groups of infants and their mothers did not differ on background

variables.

A MANOVA with group (depressed versus non-depressed) as the between groups factors and habituation expression

(sad versus happy) as the repeated measures factors was conducted on the six habituation measures. The MANOVA

revealed a group by habituation expression interaction effect, F(5,24) = 2.45,p =.06(2 = .34). Univariate tests revealed

(1) a significant main effect of group on seconds to habituation, with infants of depressed mothers taking longer

to habituate than infants of non-depressed mothers, F(1,31) = 5.15, p < .05, (2) a significant main effect of habit-

uation expression on the difference score, with greater overall recovery to happy (novel) test trials following sad

habituation trials, F(1,31) = 4.33, p < .05, and (3) a significant group by habituation expression interaction effect onthe post-habituation measure, F(1,31) = 7.86, p < .01, with post hoc analysis revealing longer looking during happy

post-habituation (M= 18 s) than during the sad post-habituation trials (M= 8.4 s) for infants of depressed mothers,

t(14) = 2.33, p < .02; and infants of non-depressed mothers showing the opposite looking pattern with longer looking

during sad post-habituation trials (M= 15.3 s) than during the happy post-habituation trials (M=6.7s), t(14) = 1.71,p = .054.

Compared to infants of non-depressed mothers, infants of depressed mothers: (1) looked longer during baseline

(trials 1 + 2) at the video clips of women depicting happy expressions (happy videos), (2) required more time (146 s

versus 103 s) to habituate the happy videos and, (3) looked longer on post-habituation happy expression trials (the

two trials prior to novel test trials). No group differences emerged for the sad expression trials, although there was a

trend again for the infants of depressed mothers to take longer to reach the habituation criterion (p = .08, two-tailed;

see Table 1).


4/5

134 M. Hernandez-Reif et al. / Infant Behavior & Development 29 (2006) 131135

Infants of depressed mothers showed increased looking to the novel expression only when habituated to the sad

video clip, t(7) = 2.17, p < .05. Similarly, infants of non-depressed mothers dishabituated or showed longer looking to

the novel test trials when habituated to the sad video clip, t(7) = 2.44, p


5/5

M. Hernandez-Reif et al. / Infant Behavior & Development 29 (2006) 131135 135

Gusella, J., Muir, D., & Tronick, E. (1988). The effect of manipulating maternal behavior during an interaction on three- and six-month-olds affect

and attention. Child Development, 59, 11111124.

Hernandez-Reif, M., Field, T., Diego, M., & Largie, S. (2002). Depressed mothers newborns show longer habituation and fail to show face/voice

preference. Infant Mental Health Journal, 23, 643653.

Montague, D., & Walker-Andrews, A. (2002). Mothers, fathers and infants: The role of person familiarity and parental involvement in infants

perception of emotion expressions. Child Development, 73, 13391352.

Nelson, C., Morse, P., & Leavitt, L. (1979). Recognition of facial expressions by seven-month-old infants. Child Development, 50, 12391242.

Radloff, L. (1977). The CES-D Scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Journal of Applied PsychologicalMeasures, 1, 385401.

Stack, D. (2004). Touching during motherinfant interactions. In T. Field (Ed.), Touch and massage in early child development(pp. 4181). Johnson

& Johnson Pediatric Institute, LLC.

Happy Faces Depressed Mothers Article

Documents

Transcript of Happy Faces Depressed Mothers Article