Infant Behavior and Development 62 (2021) 101513 Available online 16 December 2020 0163-6383/© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Does texting interrupt imitation learning in 19-month-old infants? Carolin Konrad a, *, Melanie Berger-Hanke a , Gina Hassel a , Rachel Barr b a Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Mental Health Research and Treatment Center, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany b Department of Psychology, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., USA A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Technoference Imitation Memory Parent-child interactions Texting Still face ABSTRACT Observed disruptions to parent-child interactions during parental media use, such as texting, have been termed technoference. For example, when a language learning interaction was disrupted by a phone call, toddlers were less likely to acquire the word. Other studies demonstrated that parents often exhibit a still face while silently reading information on their cell phones. In the present study, the effect of a text interruption on infant imitation learning was examined. Parents demonstrated three target actions to their infants and then infants were given the opportunity to repeat those interactions. The actions were demonstrated four times. Text interruptions occurred before or between demonstrations. Performance of these groups was compared to a baseline control group where the infant did not see a demonstration of the target actions and a no- interruption group where the parents demonstrated the target actions four times without inter- ruption. Parents were randomly assigned to three conditions, interruption-first condition, one- interruption condition, or three-interruptions condition. Infant behavior was measured during the interruptions. Across text interruption groups parents exhibited high levels of still face during the interruptions (77 %). However, infants in all 3 interruption groups performed significantly above the baseline control indicating learning despite the interruptions. Higher reported maternal reliance on the smartphone was related to poorer imitation performance overall. In contrast, when parents reported that they found it easier to multi-task infant imitation rates were higher. These findings indicate that infants can learn under conditions of brief technoference and that individual differences in family media ecology are associated with learning. 1. Introduction The introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010 heralded a rapid shift in the availability of mobile technology in the homes of infants. Nearly all U.S. homes with young children (95 %) have a smartphone, and three quarters have a tablet (Rideout, 2017) and in Germany the availability of smartphones is also very high (65 %, Medienp¨ adagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest (Hrsg.), 2015). During toddlerhood, however, use of smartphones by toddlers themselves is relatively low. Parents report that time spent using tablets or smartphones during early childhood does not typically exceed 30 min per day (e.g., Lauricella, Wartella, & Rideout, 2015). In a survey of parents with children aged 5–40 months in France, 75 % of families used touchscreen technology such as tablets to view videos or photos, and 50 % reported using tablet applications marketed as appropriate for babies (Cristia & Seidl, 2015). Mobile device use occurs in brief, intermittent bursts (Radesky et al., 2020), and therefore is difficult for parents to self-report * Corresponding author. E-mail address: carolin.konrad@rub.de (C. Konrad). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Infant Behavior and Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/inbede https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101513 Received 1 September 2020; Received in revised form 24 November 2020; Accepted 24 November 2020