Query: still face

title: Maternal anxiety and depressive disorders prior to, during and after pregnancy and infant interaction behaviors during the Face to Face Still Face Paradigm at 4 months postpartum: A prospective longitudinal study.
abstract: Few studies prospectively examined the role of maternal anxiety and depressive disorders for early infant psychosocial stress responsivity.  To investigate the role of lifetime maternal anxiety and depressive disorders for various early infant interaction behaviors during the Face to Face Still Face Paradigm (FFSFP) at 4 months postpartum.  251 mothers (and their infants) from early pregnancy until 4 months postpartum. PREDICTOR Cumulated lifetime diagnoses of maternal anxiety and depressive disorders, repeatedly assessed with the CIDI V from early pregnancy until 4 months postpartum.  Infant positive and negative facial expressions and vocalizations, distancing behavior, self and object touch, observed during the FFSFP at 4 months postpartum.  As indicated by fractional logit models, higher proportions of object touch were seen among infants of mothers with anxiety only (still face: 7.8% and comorbid anxiety and depression (still face: 7.9% reunion: 2.9% vs. no anxiety and no depression. Higher proportion changes in object touch were found among infants of mothers with anxiety only (play to still face: 6.4% and comorbid anxiety and depression (play to still face: 7.2% play to reunion: 2.7% vs. no anxiety and no depression. Higher proportion changes in distancing behavior were seen among infants of mothers with comorbid anxiety and depression (still face to reunion: 1.1% play to reunion: 1.3% vs. no anxiety and no depression.  Particularly mothers with anxiety only and comorbid anxiety and depression and their infants might profit from targeted early interventions to foster favorable interaction behaviors in early infancy and thereafter.

title: Robust Stability and Physiological Correlates of Infants' Patterns of Regulatory Behavior in the Still Face Paradigm at 3 and 9 Months
abstract: This study examined the stability of three patterns of infant regulatory behavior identified in the face to face still face (FFSF) paradigm at 3 and 9 months social positive oriented, distressed inconsolable, and self comfort oriented and whether variations in infants' heart rate were correlated with them. Although some studies have examined the stability of discrete infant behaviors, none have investigated the stability of early regulatory patterns across FFSF episodes over time. Healthy full term infants and their mothers (N 112) were videotaped in the FFSF when infants were 3 and 9 months old. Infants' regulatory patterns were scored with the Coding System for Regulatory Patterns in the FFSF. Infants' heart rate level during each episode of the FFSF was also assessed. The social positive oriented pattern was the most prevalent at both ages. Cross tabulation analysis showed a robust stability (Cohen's &kgr; .72) of the regulatory patterns from 3 to 9 months. The heart rate level of infants with a social positive oriented pattern at 3 and 9 months showed recovery to baseline levels following the still face. In contrast, the heart rate level of infants with a distressed inconsolable pattern at 9 months increased from the still face to the reunion episode, whereas the heart rate level of infants with a self comfort oriented pattern at 9 months did not change from the still face to the reunion episodes. These results suggest that infants exhibit distinct organized regulatory patterns as early as 3 months that are stable over a 6 month interval and associated with variations in infants' physiological responses across FFSF episodes at both ages.

title: Effects of maternal depression in the Still Face Paradigm: A meta analysis.
abstract: The Still Face Paradigm (SFP) enables researchers to examine the quality of mother infant interactions. In typical infants, a classic still face effect (SFE) has been confirmed whereby infants demonstrate reduced positive affect (PA) reduced gaze (GA) and increased negative affect (NA) Recently, the SFP has been used to examine the effect of maternal depression upon infant behaviour. However, the nature and consistency of the behavioural responses of infants of depressed mothers during the SFP remains unclear. In the current meta analysis, we examined whether or not infants of depressed mothers demonstrate the classic SFE, as well as whether or not these infants display the same levels of PA, NA, and GA as their counterparts with non depressed mothers. Results revealed that infants of depressed mothers display the classic SFE like infants of their non depressed counterparts. However, infants of depressed mothers also demonstrated significantly higher levels of PA during the still face episode. One potential interpretation of this finding is that infants prior experience of similar, depressed interactions with their mothers, encourages them to amplify their positive attachment signals in order to engage maternal attention and response. Alternatively, or additionally, infants of depressed mothers could be using PA in order to regulate their own NA.

title: The Still Face: A Greater Challenge for Infants of Mothers With Borderline Personality Disorder.
abstract: The main aim of this study was to ascertain whether infants as young as 3 months of age, whose mothers suffer from borderline personality disorder (BPD) are already at risk of greater dysregulation than infants of mothers without BPD when faced with a minor stressful experience. Nineteen mothers diagnosed with BPD and 41 controls with no history of psychopathology and their 3 month old infants were observed using Tronick's Face to Face Still Face paradigm. The authors found that infants whose mothers have BPD express less positive vocalizations and less nonautonomic self regulation than infants of mothers with no psychopathology. The stress of the Still Face episode affects their gaze and self regulation behaviors more strongly than those of infants of controls. The Reunion episode seems particularly challenging for mothers with BPD, who show fewer smiles and an increase in intrusive behavior. Because infants and their mothers with BPD are already dysregulated at 3 months postpartum, envisaging very early intervention seems warranted.

title: Still Face Studies

title: Neonates' responses to repeated exposure to a still face
abstract: The main aims of the study were to examine whether human neonates' responses to communication disturbance modelled by the still face paradigm were stable and whether their responses were affected by their previous experience with the still face paradigm.  The still face procedure, as a laboratory model of interpersonal stress, was administered repeatedly, twice, to 84 neonates (0 to 4 day olds) with a delay of an average of 1.25 day.  Frame by frame analysis of the frequency and duration of gaze, distressed face, crying, sleeping and sucking behaviours showed that the procedure was stressful to them both times, that is, the still face effect was stable after repeated administration and newborns consistently responded to such nonverbal violation of communication. They averted their gaze, showed distress and cried more during the still face phase in both the first and the second administration. They also showed a carry over effect in that they continued to avert their gaze and displayed increased distress and crying in the first reunion period, but their gaze behaviour changed with experience, in the second administration. While in the first administration the babies continued averting their gaze even after the stressful still face phase was over, this carry over effect disappeared in the second administration, and the babies significantly increased their gaze following the still face phase.  After excluding explanations of fatigue, habituation and random effects, a self other regulatory model is discussed as a possible explanation for this pattern.

title: Effect of Maternal Responsiveness on Young Infants' Social Bidding Like Behavior during the Still Face Task
abstract: The effect of maternal responsiveness on infants' emergence of social bidding like behavior during the Still Face Task was examined longitudinally at the infant ages of one week, one month, two months, and three months. Infants' social behaviors of smiling or making non distress vocalizations while looking at the mother during the still face phase significantly increased when infants were two months of age. These social bidding like behaviors at two and three months correlated with maternal responsiveness in the initial interactive phase of the Still Face Task on the concurrent and previous visits and with infants' positive social behaviors in the initial interactive phase at two and three months. Regression analyses indicate that maternal vocal responsiveness on the concurrent visit was the sole predictor of infants' social bidding like behavior at two months and was the major predictor of such infant behavior at three months. Maternal responsiveness enhances infants' awareness that they are effective agents in instigating social interaction, as suggested by infants' social behaviors toward their mothers when the mothers are unresponsive. This awareness is present by the infant age of two months.

title: Prenatal Reflective Functioning and Accumulated Risk as Predictors of Maternal Interactive Behavior During Free Play, the Still Face Paradigm, and Two Teaching Tasks
abstract: This study examined whether prenatal reflective functioning (RF) was related to mothers' interactive style across contexts with their 6 month old infants (M age 6.02 months, SD 0.41, 54% boys) and to what extent quality of prenatal RF could account for the influence of accumulated risk on maternal interactive behavior. Accumulated risk was defined as the sum score of a selection of risk factors that have been associated with sub optimal infant development. Mother infant dyads (N 133) were observed during free play, two teaching tasks, and the Still Face Paradigm (SFP) Better prenatal RF was asso ciated with more positive maternal behavior in all settings and less negative behavior dur ing teaching and SFP reengagement. Accumulated risk and prenatal RF predicted shared variance in maternal interactive behavior (with unique predictive effects observed only for RF on sensitivity during teaching and SFP play, and for accumulated risk on sensitivity and positive engagement during SFP play, and internalizing helplessness during SFP reen gagement) Accumulated risk had an indirect effect on maternal sensitivity during teaching and SFP play through prenatal RF. These findings suggest not only that RF may be tar geted prenatally to improve mother infant interactions, but also that enhancing RF skills may ameliorate some of the negative consequences from more stable perinatal risk factors that influence parent child interactions.

title: Do infants exhibit significant cortisol reactivity to the Face to Face Still Face paradigm? A narrative review and meta analysis
abstract: The Face to Face Still Face (FFSF) paradigm is a widely adopted experimental procedure to assess infants' response to socio emotional stress during the first months of life. Previous reviews demonstrated that this procedure elicits specific behavioral responses, including an increase in negative emotionality and gaze aversion as well as a decrease in positive emotionality and social engagement. Infants also give evidence of hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis reactivity to the FFSF. Unfortunately, previous studies reported inconsistencies in the association between the exposure to the FFSF paradigm and HPA activation during the first months of life. In this paper, the HPA axis correlates of FFSF stress regulation were examined through a narrative review and a meta analysis. A literature search was conducted on three databases (i.e. Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed) and led to 17 studies included in the review and 10 included in the meta analysis. The findings suggested that infants tend to show a clearly observable activation of the HPA axis in response to the socio emotional stress elicited by the FFSF paradigm, although considerable variation in methodology and sample characteristics was documented. A five episode repeated exposure version of the FFSF procedure emerged as a more suitable procedure to elicit a significant neuroendocrine response. In summary, the FFSF appears to elicit HPA axis activation in response to socio emotional stress, but only in specific contextual conditions. As such, open questions remain and require continuity in FFSF research efforts.

title: Associations between Infant Behaviors during the Face To Face Still Face Paradigm and Oppositional Defiant and Callous Unemotional Behaviors in Early Childhood
abstract: Deficits in social orienting (i.e. gazing toward caregivers) during dyadic interactions and reactivity to stressful stimuli have been identified as behavioral correlates of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and callous unemotional (CU) behaviors in older children. The goal of the current study was to investigate infants' mother directed gaze and reactivity during the face to face and still face episodes of the face to face stillface paradigm performed at 6 months in the prediction of ODD and CU behaviors in early childhood. Using data from the Durham Child Health and Development study (n 206) hierarchical regression analyses revealed that infants' negative reactivity during the still face episode and mother directed gaze during the face to face episode predicted fewer ODD behaviors in early childhood. Examination of interaction effects suggested that mother directed gaze attenuated the negative relation between reactivity and ODD and CU behaviors in early childhood. The current study is one of the first to extend downward the investigation of ODD and CU behaviors into infancy.