Motion-based baby schema in infant gait: inversion effect and the influence of maternal experience

Research on the baby schema has predominantly focused on static facial or bodily proportions, yet Lorenz's original concept also highlighted clumsy infant movements as potential cues eliciting caregiving responses. To investigate whether motion-based infantile features trigger baby schema reactions, three groups of adults (mothers, female students, male students) were presented with point-light displays (PLDs) depicting an infant, a preschooler, and an adult walking, shown side-by-side in both upright and inverted orientations. Participants evaluated each pair for relative cuteness, desire to help, clumsiness, and familiarity. The results indicated that infant gait reliably elicits core baby schema responses across groups, particularly for clumsiness and helping desire. Inverting infant-based pairings significantly reduced perceptions of cuteness and the desire to help, supporting the notion that upright orientation facilitates the holistic processing of dynamic infantile cues. Mothers generally exhibited responses similar to male and female students, yet they reported heightened baby schema responses in some conditions. Further analyses demonstrated that the age of their own child modulated baby schema perceptions, indicating that real-world caregiving experience may enhance sensitivity to infantile motion. Overall, these findings extend baby schema theory beyond static cues to dynamic gait-based features, illustrating how orientation and parenting experience jointly shape adult reactions to clumsy infant movements and underscoring the broader developmental and practical significance of motion-driven caregiving triggers.