What is the still-face interaction paradigm? What does it measure in infants? What do experimental results suggest?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The still-face interaction paradigm is an experimental task that measures memory in infants. In the experiment, an infant interacts with an adult who first engages in normal social interaction and then suddenly lets his or her face become still, expressionless, and unresponsive. Infants usually respond to the adult's still face with brief smiles followed by negative facial expressions, crying, looking away, thumb sucking, and other indications of emotional distress. In one study, 5-month-old infants who were exposed to the still face demonstrated recall over a year later, at 20 months of age, by looking less at the woman who appeared in the still-face paradigm than at two other women whom the infants had never previously seen. These lines of research suggest that memory improves over the course of infancy, but even young infants are likely to recall events in which they are actively engaged, that take place in familiar surroundings, and that are emotionally salient.