Transcript Lab 3

Lab 3
The Still Face Task
The Still-Face Task
 The Still Face Task examines infants’ early expectations for
social interaction.
 The task was originally developed by Tronick and colleagues
(1978).
Still Face Task
 Initial phase: Mother engages the baby in face-to-face
interaction
 Still face phase: Mother becomes suddenly still, looking at
the baby with a neutral expression, without talking or
touching the baby
 Reunion phase: Mother engages the baby again
Still Face Effect
Baby shows reduced attention and positive affect in the still
face phase compared to the two interactive phases (initial and
reunion phases).
Video of Tronick explaining the Still-Face Effect
What does the still-face effect indicate?
Infants’ expectations for social interaction
 Attention changes indicate the infant noticed the change in
the mother’s behavior
 Affect changes indicate the infant experienced violations of
his/her expectation for affect sharing
Micro-Scoring of each phase
 Attention: looks to the mothers face-yes/no
 Facial affect: mutually exclusive smiles, neutral, frowns
(scored with sound off)
 Vocal affect: mutually exclusive positive/neutral, negative,
no vocals (exclude hiccups, burps, etc,)
Today’s Exercise
PART 1 : DATA COLLECTION
 On your computer, watch an infant participating in the Still-Face
Task
 Video is linked here (removed)
 Using your Scoring Sheet, rate the infant’s attention level and
facial affect during each of the 3 phases
 You will use a Likert Scale, with 1 being non-attentive or negative, 4
being neutral, and 7 being very attentive or positive.
Today’s Exercise
Part 2: DATA ANALYSIS
 Open the linked Excel file and save it to your H: Drive
 Input your attention ratings for Participant 12 (the infant you
watched) for each phase
 Using ‘Insert Function’, find the mean and standard deviation (SD)
for attention level during each phase
 Create a column (bar) graph of the data set
 Complete the question sheet
Finding ‘Means’ and ‘SDs’ in Excel
Mean = The average score across all participants
SD= How much on average, each participant’s score deviated from the Mean
We will calculate these in the Excel sheet:
1) Select the cell where you want to do the calculation
2) At top of toolbar, have ‘Formulas’ selected
3) Click ‘Insert Function’ in toolbar (furthest to left)
4) In the window that opens, select ‘AVERAGE’ to find the Mean
or, select ‘STDEV’ to find the SD.
5) Drag and highlight the corresponding column of numbers from Participant 1-12, hit ‘Ok’
6) Round your answers to 2 decimal places,
e.g. 2.1678 would be 2.17
Making your Bar Graph
1) Highlight the data for all 12 participants (including the titles for each phase)
 Do not highlight the words “Participant 1, Participant 2, etc”, or the Means and SDs
2) At the top of the toolbar, select ‘Insert’ and below, select ‘Chart’
3) On the left, select ‘Column’, and choose the first option (“2-D Clustered Column”)
4) Label your axes by selecting ‘Layout’ at top of toolbar, and then selecting ‘Axis Titles’
5) To label your x-axis (along bottom of graph), select ‘Primary Horizontal Axis’ and then
‘Title Below Axis’ –you can then type in the title ‘Participants’
6) To label your y-axis (along side of graph), select ‘Primary Vertical Axis’ and then ‘Rotated
Title’ –then type in ‘Attention Rating’
7) To print your graph, first you need to move it to it’s own sheet:
 Right-click inside the box that your graph is in (but outside the borders of your actual
graph)
 Select ‘Move Chart’
 Select ‘New Sheet’, ‘Ok’
Before you Leave Today:
 Submit:
 Graph
 Scoring/Question Sheet
-Make sure your name is on both, and save a copy of your Graph