"On the screen, circles of gently colored shapes flickered and music softly played while a sensor taped to the baby's chest recorded how much the baby's heart beat when the baby breathed in, and how much the baby's heart beat when it breathed out.
"This simple measure has a complicated scientific name that sounds vaguely like a disease — baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia — but the researchers were interested in it because it can tell you something about how a baby responds to the world around it....
"If the toddler is easily soothed by the mother, the researchers conclude that their attachment is strong and that the environment the toddler has grown up in is relatively secure. But if the toddler doesn't seem comfortable with the mother and can't be soothed, the researchers conclude that the attachment is poorer and that the environment the child is growing up in is probably unstable...."
Conradt, et al. (Mar. 2013). "Poverty, Problem Behavior, and Promise: Differential Susceptibility Among Infants Reared in Poverty." Psychological Science, 24(3); 235-242. Abstract.
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