Infants Participate in Complex Interactions with Their Parents

...A new study in the journal Family Process shows that infants appear to be active participants in complex interactional sequences with their parents far earlier than previously thought. Researchers documented the capacity of three-month old infants to share attention with two partners simultaneously.

Triangular capacities were defined as the frequency of babies’ rapid multi-shift gaze transitions between parents, as the infants shifted their gaze back-and-forth between the two adults during a well-established family interaction paradigm. The babies did the same thing in a more stressful procedure in which the two adults challenged them by posing motionless faces following a period of free play....