Concurrent and lagged physiological synchrony during mother–child interaction and their relationship to positive affect in 8- to 10-year-old children
Open accessAbstract
Mother–child interaction has been characterized by a fine-tuning of behavior and physiological activity. Yet, little is known about the dynamics of mother–child physiological synchrony during early school age and their associations to positive affect. To investigate these processes, 42 mother–child dyads, with children aged 8 to 10 years, played an interactive game while their interbeat intervals (IBI) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were measured simultaneously. IBI/RSA synchrony was calculated using cross-correlations of the IBI/RSA second-by-second time series for lags − 3 to + 3 seconds. Mother’s and child’s individual and shared positive affect were microcoded. During the interactive tasks, IBI and RSA synchrony significantly increased compared to control conditions. RSA and affect synchrony were significantly stronger for negative compared to positive lags indicating a stronger child leads/mother follows covariation. Further, dyad’s IBI and RSA synchrony were significantly associated to mother’s and child’s individual positive affect. Our data suggest that in low-risk community samples, mothers may respond to their children’s positive affect by matching their own affect and physiology. Investigating these temporally precise, concurrent and lagged synchrony processes may open up new avenues for understanding the ways in which parent–child interactions contribute to child developmental outcomes.
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Previous studies have reported IPS in both familiar and unfamiliar pairs of participants.
“While previous studies have reported IPS in both familiar [4, 24, 43, 44] and unfamiliar [45, 46, 47] pairs of participants”
From Interpersonal Synchronization of Autonomic Physiology via Mere Visual Contact (2026) · cites this paper as [44]
Previous research has established that social interaction leads to interpersonal alignment of heart rate, pupil diameter, breathing rate, and skin conductance.
“Previous research has already established that social interaction leads to the interpersonal alignment of the physiological measures tested here—namely, heart rate [4, 44, 51, 86, 87, 88], pupil diameter [16, 17, 89], breathing rate [11, 90, 91], and skin conductance [8, 92, 93, 94].”
From Interpersonal Synchronization of Autonomic Physiology via Mere Visual Contact (2026) · cites this paper as [44]
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- Authors
- Capraz, Y. Z., Konrad, K., & Reindl, V.
- Affiliations
- RWTH Aachen University (DE)
- Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (DE)
- Nanyang Technological University (SG)
- Corresponding author
- Reindl, Vanessa
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2023-10-18
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 17744-17744
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10584844
- OpenAlex
- W4387742583
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 55
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3
- FWCI
- 2.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RWTH Publications (RWTH Aachen) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- DR-NTU (Nanyang Technological University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RWTH Publications (RWTH Aachen) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- RWTH Publications (RWTH Aachen)
- Funders
- START-Programme of the medical faculty of the RWTH Aachen University
- RWTH Aachen University
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- mother-child interaction, physiological synchrony, positive affect, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RR interval, cross correlation function, parent-child dyads, younger schoolchildren, child development
- MeSH terms
- Child, Child Development, Female, Humans, Mother-Child Relations, Mothers, Parent-Child Relations, Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia
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