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ERIC Number: EJ1474849
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jul
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1363-755X
EISSN: EISSN-1467-7687
Available Date: 2025-06-10
It's Safe to Look: Maternal Touch Affects Infants' Fear Bias
Margaret Addabbo1; Elena Guida2; Victoria Licht2; Chiara Turati2,3
Developmental Science, v28 n4 e70039 2025
Touch is an extraordinary sensory, communicative, and affective experience that has cascading positive effects on infants' socio-emotional development and neurobiological functioning. This study aims to explore whether maternal touch can influence infants' well-known attentional biases toward fearful facial expressions. Visual behaviour of 7-month-old infants was measured through an eye-tracker while they were presented with an overlap task in which a central emotional face (happy, neutral, and fearful) was followed by a peripheral distractor. During the task, infants were randomly assigned to two experimental groups. In one group, the mother kept the hand on the infant's lap (Touch group, N = 24), while in another group, the mother was present but not in tactile contact with the infant (No-Touch condition, N = 24). Also, the frequency of spontaneous maternal touch was assessed during mother-infant free-play interaction. Results showed an overall increase in the proportion of looking times (PTs) toward the fear stimulus compared to the other emotional stimuli. Further, only the group of infants that were in tactile contact with their mothers showed slower disengagement times (DTs) from fearful faces compared to happy and neutral emotions. Finally, in the No-Touch condition, infants who experienced more regulatory touch (massages and caresses) when interacting with their mother showed increased attention toward threatening (Fearful faces) and ambiguous (Neutral faces) emotional signals. Vice versa, increased frequency with other forms of touch (i.e., dynamic and static) during the interaction was associated with decreased attention toward the negative and neutral facial expressions. Our findings suggest that maternal touch provides a relevant communicative signal to the infant that indicates that it is safe to process fearful stimuli, favoring infants' knowledge and learning of their social world.
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Italy
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Psychology, CRIdee, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy; 2Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy; 3NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milano, Italy