Infant's emotional variability associated to interactive stressful situation: a novel analysis approach with Sample Entropy and Lempel-Ziv Complexity

Infant Behav Dev. 2010 Jun;33(3):346-56. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2010.04.007. Epub 2010 May 6.

Abstract

This study examined to which extent the lack of the mother's communicative input is associated to the variability of the infant's behavioral and emotional states at a microtemporal level. Two novel non-linear signal-processing metrics were used as regularity indexes during both normal and stressful mother-infant interactions (Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm): (1) Sample Entropy estimates the presence of epochs of similar states in a data-series, according to a moment-to-moment analysis; (2) Lempel-Ziv Complexity evaluates the occurrence and recurrence of the patterns of analogous states along the data sequence. Fourteen mothers and their healthy full-term 7-month-old infants were videotaped and the infants' socio-emotional behaviors were micro-analytically coded off-line using a .20s time sampling method. During the maternal still-face episodes, when infants were confronted with the perturbation of their caregiver remaining unresponsive, both regularity indexes were lower than in normal interactions. Evidence is provided that non-linear techniques are suitable to detect variability in the infant's states.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Data Interpretation, Statistical
  • Emotions*
  • Facial Expression
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Infant Behavior / psychology*
  • Male
  • Maternal Behavior*
  • Mother-Child Relations*
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Play and Playthings
  • Psychological Tests
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Social Behavior*
  • Stress, Psychological*
  • Time Factors
  • Video Recording