It's Safe to Look: Maternal Touch Affects Infants' Fear Bias.
Margaret Addabbo1, Elena Guida2, Victoria Licht2
1Department of Psychology, CRIdee, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy.
Developmental Science
|June 10, 2025
Summary
Maternal touch helps infants process fearful faces, indicating safety and aiding social learning. Different touch types influence attention towards emotional cues differently.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Infant Behavior
Background:
- Touch is crucial for infant socio-emotional development and neurobiological functioning.
- Infants exhibit attentional biases towards fearful facial expressions.
- Maternal touch may modulate these attentional biases.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the influence of maternal touch on infants' attentional biases towards fearful facial expressions.
- To differentiate the effects of direct maternal touch versus maternal presence without touch.
- To explore how different types of maternal touch impact infant attention.
Main Methods:
- Eye-tracking was used to measure visual behavior in 7-month-old infants during an emotional face overlap task.
- Infants were assigned to a 'Touch' group (mother's hand on infant's lap) or a 'No-Touch' group.
- Maternal touch frequency and type were assessed during free-play interaction.
Main Results:
- Infants generally showed increased attention towards fearful stimuli.
- Infants in the 'Touch' group exhibited slower disengagement times from fearful faces compared to happy/neutral faces.
- In the 'No-Touch' group, regulatory touch increased attention to fearful/neutral faces, while other touch types decreased it.
Conclusions:
- Maternal touch acts as a communicative signal, conveying safety for processing fearful stimuli.
- This tactile communication supports infants' social understanding and learning.
- The type of maternal touch significantly influences infant attention to emotional cues.
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