Rayner, Charlotte2024-07-112024-07-112022https://hdl.handle.net/2440/141577This item is only available electronically.As infants age, their emerging ability to extract rich information becomes more adapted to their social environment. In particular, parents communicate through emotional expressions with young infants, and in turn, by verbal language with older infants. That is, for infants, emotional expression and language acquisition are two parts of a developing communication system. Consequently, it is essential for caregivers to be aware of the effect contextual cues, such as facial expressions, have on infant language acquisition. A substantial proportion of past studies regarding the influence of emotional expressions have relied heavily on posed facial expressions. However, their idealised and unrealistic nature may be unrepresentative of spontaneous affective expressions that an infant would see in day-to-day life. Thus, naturalistic approaches are crucial for gaining a complete understanding of everyday interactions related to language experiences. This study conducted a secondary data analysis by examining a large, longitudinal dataset of egocentric head-mounted camera videos, the SAYCam Corpus, through Automatic Facial Expression Analysis (FEA). Mixed effect models were applied to determine if the Valence and Expressiveness of parent expressions influenced gesture and language development over a 2-and-a-half-year period. Although significant associations between language and expressions were present, the effects of these were small. Furthermore, this study provides crucial examination of how an infant's environment can play an active role in enhancing their early language.Honours; PsychologyThesis