Abstract

The preverbal period of infancy is characterized by the absence of receptive and expressive verbal communication and substantial reliance on nonverbal forms of communication. Although nonverbal behavior is believed to be particularly salient to infants during early infancy, little is known about the nonverbal strategies that mothers employ when attempting to influence their infants' behavior or state of arousal, or about infants' nonverbal behavioral reactions to such stimulation. The two studies comprising this dissertation aimed to examine contextual, developmental, and birth status effects on the expressions of maternal and infant nonverbal behavior. In Study 1, maternal tactile-gestural stimulation and infants' gaze and affect were assessed during four brief interaction periods. Contextual variations to the interaction were introduced by: (a) providing different instructions to mothers on the behavior/state to elicit from their infants, and (b) varying the method by which mothers attempted to accomplish these goals (uni-modal touch only vs. multi-modal). Two within modality comparisons were conducted to evaluate whether the instructions to mothers to modify their infants' behavior/state of arousal actually influenced mothers' tactile-gestural behavior and infants' gaze and affect. A subsequent comparison between the uni-modal and multi-modal groups was then conducted to specifically examine whether, and in what way, mothers' and infants' nonverbal behaviors differed when these identical instructions were attempted in different ways. Within each of these comparisons, developmental differences were assessed by examining infants at 3�$1�