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Associations of 6-week maternal depressive symptoms (CES-D) with 4-month mother—infant self- and interactive contingency patterns during face-to-face play were investigated in a community sample of 132 dyads. Self- and interactive
This research was supported by The National Institute of Mental Health (Grant MH56130), The Psychoanalytic Fund, the Kohler Foundation, the Edward Aldwell Mother-Infant Research Fund, and the Los Angeles Infant Research and Psychoanalysis Fund. We thank our filming/coding team: Caroline Flaster, Donna Demetri-Friedman, Helen Demetriades, Nancy Freeman, Patricia Goodman, Michaela Hager-Budny, Elizabeth Helbraun, Allyson Hentel, Tammy Kaminer, Sandra Triggs Kano, Limor Kaufman-Balamuth, Greg Kushnick, Lisa Marquette, Jill Putterman, Jane Roth, Shanee Stepakoff, and Lauren Ellman. We also thank our lab assistants: Claire Jaffe, Daniella Polyak, Julia Reuben, Priscilla Caldwell, Jessica Lateck, Carol Scheik-Gamble, Danny Sims, Jake Freeman, Brianna Hailey, Alla Chavarga, Nidhi Parashar, Josianne Moise, Sarah Temech, Hope Igleheart, Yana Kuchirko, Elizabeth White, Greer Raggio, Kate Lieberman, Alina Pavlakos, Adrianne Lange, Kari Gray, Jennifer Lyne, Annee Ackerman, Fernanda Lucchese, Sarah Miller, Max Malitzky, Sam Marcus, Michael Klein, Kara Levin, Matthew Kirkpatrick, Lauren Cooper, Helen Weng, Iskra Smiljanic, and Christy Meyer. Finally, we thank our students and colleagues who contributed: Sara Hahn-Burke, Nancy Freeman, Michael Ritter, Glenn Bromley, Robert Gallaghan, Naomi Cohen, Paulette Landesman, Tina Lupi, Jillian Miller, Alan Phelan, Danielle Phelan, Katherine Weinberg, Edward Tronick, Doris Silverman, Anni Bergman, Lin Reicher, George Downing, Estelle Shane, and the Monday afternoon seminar, who consulted on our findings.
contingency were defined as predictability within (self-contingency) and between (interactive contingency) two partners' behavioral steams over time. Infant and mother attention (gaze), affect (facial, vocal), spatial orientation, and touch behaviors were coded second-by-second from split-screen videotape, and a multimodal measure of facial—visual “engagement” was constructed. With higher depressive symptoms, the self-contingency of both partners was lowered in most modalities; there was a lowered ability to anticipate one's own next move, which is metaphorically a “destabilization.” With higher depressive symptoms, interactive contingency values were both heightened (in some modalities) and lowered (in others), varying by partner, and consistent with an optimum midrange model. Thus, interactive contingency patterns associated with depressive symptoms manifested as both heightened and dampened coordination with the partner. With higher depressive symptoms, interactive contingency showed the following patterns: (a) mother and infant reciprocal orientational sensitivity; (b) mother and infant reciprocal intermodal discordance—a lowered gaze coordination but heightened affective coordination; and (c) “infant approach, mother withdraw”—as infants heightened, but mothers lowered, touch coordination with the partner's touch. The analysis of separate modalities revealed striking, complex intermodal discordances which were forms of intrapersonal and dyadic conflict, with relevance for therapeutic intervention.