Three facial expressions mothers direct to their infants

Abstract Mothers modify both their voices and their faces when interacting with infants. Although considerable work has detailed the modifications in the voice, less is known about those in the face. In this paper, three specific types of infant‐directed (ID) facial expressions were identified in videotapes of 10 English‐ and 10 Chinese‐speaking mothers interacting with infants aged 4–7 months. Four measures were taken to examine the form and meaning of these ID facial expressions. In Measure one, 32 undergraduates easily differentiated the three identified facial expression types. In Measure two, the muscle movement of each type were described through Ekman and Friesen's facial action coding system (FACS). In Measure three, 35 mothers and 40 undergraduates provided different emotional descriptions and communicative messages for each type. In Measure four, rank correlations were conducted to identify the FACS units most indicative of each facial expression type. These four measures confirmed the appearance of three expression types in both Chinese and English mothers, the involvement of unique muscle movements in these expression types in comparison to adult‐directed expressions which have been described, and the expression of distinct and consistent emotional messages. The meaning and importance of these expressions to mother‐infant interactions are discussed, and directions for future research are identified. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.