I am interested in the dynamical, relational, historical nature of mother-infant communication. In one study, we examined the development of mother-infant face-to-face communication during the first six months.  Thirteen mothers and their infants were videotaped weekly from age 4 to 24 weeks during a face-to-face interaction.  Identification of the pattern of mother-infant communication was realized by a coding system, which was designed to capture moment-to-moment changes in the dyadic co-regulatory process.  Three distinct patterns, varying in the level of mother-infant mutual involvement, were identified: symmetrical (mutual engagement by both partners), asymmetrical (mother actively engaging inactive but attentive infant), and unilateral (mother actively engaging disengaged infant).  Event history analysis was employed to examine the likelihood of continuation or transition in each pattern of communication.  In comparison to symmetrical and asymmetrical communication, unilateral communication tended to last longer and was less likely to make a transition.  Results from competing transition-specific models further showed that the transition rate of mother-infant communication patterns varied as a function of both time-constant variables (e.g., infant sex and maternal parity) and time-varying variables (e.g., infant age and dyadic communication history).  Dyadic communication history variables varying in their temporal proximity to the ongoing communication pattern (i.e., cross-session long-term, within-session short term, and immediately preceding recent history) differed in their relative contributions to the prediction of transition rate (i.e., the likelihood of change to a subsequent communication pattern). Details of this study can be found in Hsu & Fogel (2004a). (pdf file)