Infant emotional engagement in face-to-face and video chat interactions with their mothers

Many families today use video chat to help their babies develop or maintain relationships with remote family members; however, there is very little existing research that systematically compares infant emotional engagement during face-to-face and video mediated interactions. A laboratory experiment was carried out with 49 infants between the ages of 6 and 12 months. Babies and mothers played peek-a-boo either face-to-face, via video chat, or via non-contingent video. Babies' engagement was indexed by smiling and looking time, and physiological activity was simultaneously recorded. Results showed similar levels of engagement across the three presentation conditions. Babies smiled just as frequently and gazed at their mothers for the same amount of time, and their physiological responses were indistinguishable. Their smiles were marginally quicker to appear when interacting face-to-face than via video chat. Furthermore, global estimates of maternal sensitivity during the interactions appear to play a greater role in eliciting positive responses from babies than the medium by which they interact. These findings and future directions are discussed.