Biomedical subjects

T van Wulfften Palthe

Publications and source records attributed to T van Wulfften Palthe.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1993

A longitudinal study of neural maturation and early mother-infant interaction: a research note.

The development of postural control of the head and of looking towards and looking away from the mother is described; the age relationship between attainment of postural head control and looking towards the mother is investigated and the relation between smiling and "pleasure" vocalizations to looking towards and away is examined. Twelve normal, full-term mother-infant pairs participated in this home-based study. En face interaction was video-taped for maximally 15 min at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 (or 21) weeks. We conclude that postural head control constitutes an important prerequisite for the emergence of socially directed behaviours during en face interaction.

Attention↗

PubMed1990

Information statistics as applied to social interaction between mother and infant: synergic covariability vs. partial cross-covariability.

Behaviour can, in general, not be quantified on an equal-interval scale; therefore, the description of sequential aspects of the behaviour of two interacting individuals can not be formulated on the basis of the usual cross-correlation techniques. If the information content of behaviour, however, is defined analogously to the entropy in a message, this allows a quantification of the contribution of either participant to the interaction process, and the identification of a non-additive (synergic) component in addition to the auto- and cross-covariability terms. Such a framework, based on the concept of transinformation or mutual information, was developed and realised in a suite of three FORTRAN programs. These were then applied in a longitudinal study on the development of early mother-infant interaction. The synergic term appears to increase with age in the first five months of life. This application illustrates the usefulness of information statistics for quantifying the ways in which participants contribute to a process of interaction.

Data Interpretation, Statistical↗

PubMed1985

Staring in infancy.

Staring in the infant is a condition of complete immobility typically accompanied by a lack of active posture. In 14 healthy infants seen in their homes from 3 to 18 weeks, it occurred for periods of 11-84 s in 2 situations: with infant alone lying supine and in face-to-face interaction with the mother. No clear heart rate and respiration patterns were noted during staring. Appearing when the infant is alone, questions a previous assumption that this condition serves to protect the immature infant from overstimulation. This neglected but well-defined condition needs to be considered in the context of the behavioural state concept.

Child Behavior↗