Autonomic Regulatory Interaction in Early Life: The impact of technoference on mother-infant co-regulation processes: an Infrared Thermal Imaging exploration

Mother-infant interactions are crucial for newborns to achieve self-regulation through finely tuned coregulation. In modern life, the pervasive use of smartphones and social media influences these interactions, consequently affecting coregulation. This thesis has investigated the impact of technoference and paper-ference on maternal and infant thermal and behavioral responses during dyadic interactions. Applying infrared thermal imaging (ITI), the study examined how maternal distraction by smartphones (technoference) and paper-based tasks (paper-ference), which are modified versions of still-face paradigm, affected thermal and behavioral expressions and dyadic attunement between mothers and infants. Results indicated distinct patterns in maternal and infant thermal and behavioral responses across episodes. Infants showed a decrease in forehead temperature compared to baseline while no variation was observed in infants’ nasal temperature. A decrease in maternal forehead temperature was observed during technoference and paper-ference with a full recovery during the reunions. The thermo-behavioral coregulation findings indicated a negative correlation between maternal touch and infant negative affect during the reunion following the paper-ference. Interestingly, mothers showed an increase in nasal temperature during the experiment episodes compared to baseline. We also found an increase in infant negative affect and a decrease in infant positive affect. Furthermore, a thermal coregulation was found in nasal temperature during the reunion following technoference. The findings underscore the complex interplay between technological distractions, maternal caregiving behaviors, and infant emotional responses. This research contributes to understanding the physiological and behavioral dynamics of mother-infant interactions in today’s digital contexts.