Infants' Affective Thermal Response to Technoference during Interaction with their Mothers: Exploring the role of Temperament

The interaction between a mother and their infant is a crucial part of the development of the child both physiologically and socio-emotionally. Over the years technology has been widespread and as more technology is being created and updated, the use has also increased. This thesis will investigate the literature on the topic of maternal distractions by technology (also known as technoference) and see if infants’ physiological response is impacted during this distraction and whether the infant’s temperament plays a part in both physiological and behavioural responses of the infant. This thesis includes work and results from the ARIEL study, a study examining how maternal distraction by smartphones compared to maternal distractions by paper differ or not. The study collected data from 38 mother-infant dyads using Infrared Thermal Imaging to collect temperature of both mother and infant, 360-degree camera to observe infant and mother behaviour, and the Infant Behaviour Questionnaire-Revised Short version, to assess infant temperament. The results indicate that maternal distractions either digital or non digital impacts infant behaviour, with an increase in behavioral indices of distress. Furthermore, a decrease in infant’s forehead temperature was specifically detected during technoference. Lastly, infant’s temperament was associated with infant’s behavior and thermal affective response during the procedure. children Future research should be explored, however regardless, this study successfully highlights the importance and impact of maternal attention for an infant’s behaviour and parents should be more aware of this impact during interactions with their children. Keywords: Temperament, Infrared Thermal Imaging, Infant Behaviour Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R) Short version, Technoference, Still-Face, Autonomic Nervous system, the Poly-Vagal Theory, Socio-Emotional Behaviour