still face.

What started all this was thinking about my favorite actor, and how expressive his face is, and how *responsive* he is to the people he's acting with - and it made me think of the µ unit, and how *she* is almost *too* expressive - like, *hyper* expressive, to the point of feeling like jangling nerves all the time.

EXCEPT.

And this is the key.

EXCEPT: When *I* need something from her.

Then her face goes all still and watchful, and often looks angry or slightly scowly, as if I've done something wrong, and she's waiting for the moment to pounce on me, to judge, harshly, and criticize, and make some rude, sarcastic or otherwise down-putting comment.

Wow.

It's all so *clear* now - why did it take me *so fricking long* to figure all this out???

I'm not *blaming* myself, mind you, it's just that it all seems so *obvious* now.

Ach.

Well, anyway.

So the title of the post, 'still face', is in honor of the 'still face' experiments that have been done with infants and mothers, to see how the unresponsive face of an adult caretaker (usually the mother, but it can be another adult - just that the mother is *usually* the one doing the work)

affects a young child or newborn.

'They' (various study-ers of such things) have decided that there's a *huge* impact on the infant's developing brain, psyche and various motor and other skills depending on how sensitive (or even *over* sensitive) the mother is to the child's needs.

There turns out to be a sort of ideal balance for each mother/child pair - not too much, not too little, but *juuuust* right (Goldilocks, yes :-).

Here's a link to *one* such study:
http://scienceblogs.com/thoughtfulanimal/2010/10/ed_tronick_and_the_still_face.php Bolds mine:

The still face experiment demonstrated that very young infants already have several basic building blocks of social cognition in place. It suggested that they have some sense of the relationship between facial expression and emotion, that they have some primitive social understanding, and that they are able to regulate their own affect and attention to some extent. The infants' attempts to re-engage with their caregivers also suggest that they are able to plan and execute simple goal-directed behaviors.
[...]
The still-face experiment has likewise been useful in answering questions about how the still face effect may be related to earlier experiences and how it may predict later social-emotional variables. For example, variations in the still-face effect have been associated with mothers' baseline sensitivity and interactive style, and the infants' later attachment classification at age 1, internalizing (e.g. depression, anxiety) and externalizing (e.g. aggression, impulsivity) behaviors at 18 months, and behavior problems at age 3.

Another link, this one has a video example of a 'still face' experiment (haven't watched it myself yet, have to wait til I can get to the library and a faster computer, but I've seen other, *similar* studies on video done before.) Quote from the article:

Emotion is critical to learning. Babies process sensations from the moment of birth and even in the womb. They sense a bright light. Whether it is the parent’s sensitive touch or gentle songs sung while being rocked, all help to attach values and emotional reactions. A loud noise hurts. A lullaby is soothing. It’s through these emotional connections that an infant’s brain begins to learn about and organize their world. Researchers have found that it’s the connections to people in a baby’s world that makes the most difference. Children are wired to learn through their important caregivers and we as adults are wired to teach them.

From http://infantmentalhealthtulsa.org/stillfacevideo.html.


[Edit: Split the original (long) version of this into two posts (the previous one and this one) for my own sanity/clarity.]