Do infant dummies (pacifiers) impede the emotional connection between adult and baby?

Dummies (known as pacifiers in the US) can calm a crying baby in seconds, so their appeal is obvious. However, a new study warns there could be a price to pay. Magdalena Rychlowska and her colleagues claim that because dummies obscure babies' faces, they interfere with the way that adults respond to babies' emotions.The researchers used electrodes to record the facial muscles of 29 women (average age 21; two of them were mothers) while they looked at photographs of two young babies expressing happiness, sadness, anger or a neutral emotion. Sometimes the babies had dummies in their mouths; other times didn't. Also, some of the photos featured a white square superimposed over the baby's mouth region. This last condition was to control for any influence of the sight of a dummy, beyond its obscuring effect. As well as having their facial activity recorded, the participants also rated the intensity of the emotions shown by the babies.When the women looked at happy babies with a dummy in their mouth (or when a white square was superimposed over the babies' mouth region) they exhibited less activity in their Zygomaticus muscle, which pulls the mouth into a smile. In other words, they showed less mirroring of the babies' happiness. When the babies had a dummy, or a white square covered their mouth region, the women also rated the babies' happiness to be less intense. The presence of a dummy was no more interfering than the white square, which suggests the effect of the dummy was pure...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs