Parental roles comparing boys with girls within three play contexts.

How Parents Play: Play Style as a Function of Gender of Parent, Gender of Child, and Play Context

This study observed 81 children playing with their mothers and fathers separately to examine how parent and child gender, as well as play context, influenced parental play roles. The findings revealed complex interactions between gender and play context, with parents adopting different roles (director, facilitator, or co-player) based on the child’s gender and the type of game, highlighting the significant impact of these factors on parent-child play dynamics.

July 2024 · Chao Liu, Amanda W. Harrist, Jeffrey T. Cookston, Sonia Carrillo
mother-child interaction

Unveiling the tapestry of mother–child interactions through text mining and sentiment analysis

This study utilized text mining and sentiment analysis on mother-child conversations to examine the developmental trends in their interactions from early to middle childhood. The findings revealed a shift towards more balanced interactions as children age, with increased turn-taking dynamics and linguistic congruence, as well as a complex interdependence of expressed emotions between mothers and children over time.

April 2024 · Chao Liu, Kira Waltz
The Clusters of Mother Polarity and Child Polarity over time

Text mining and sentiment analysis: A new lens to explore the emotion dynamics of mother-child interactions

This study employed text mining and sentiment analysis on over 8,800 mother-child conversation transcripts to examine dynamic patterns of emotion expression, revealing distinct temporal trends in emotional sentiment for both mothers and children. The research identified clusters of mothers and children with varying emotion expression patterns, and demonstrated how mother-child polarity score differences fluctuated throughout conversations, showcasing the potential of these analytical methods for understanding parent-child interactions and informing relationship-focused interventions.

February 2024 · Chao Liu, Charis Chen