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Event-related potentials (ERPs) are an excellent tool for investigating parental neural responses to child stimuli. Using meta-analysis, we quantified the results of available studies reporting N170 or LPP/P3 ERP responses to children's faces, targeting three questions: 1) Do parents and non-parents differ in ERP responses to child faces? 2) Are parental ERP responses larger to own vs. unfamiliar child faces? 3) Are parental ERP responses to child faces associated with indicators of parenting quality, such as observed parental sensitivity? Across 23 studies (N = 1035), key findings showed 1) larger N170 amplitudes to child faces in parents than in non-parents (r = 0.19), 2) larger LPP/P3 responses to own vs. unfamiliar child faces in parents (r = 0.19), and 3) positive associations between parental LPP/P3 responses to child faces and parenting quality outcomes (r = 0.15). These results encourage further research particularly with the LPP/P3 to assess attentional-motivational processes of parenting, but also highlight the need for larger samples and more systematic assessments of associations between ERPs and parenting.

We investigated the impact of maternal status on hormonal reactivity and behavioral responses to an infant simulator in 117 women (54 primiparous, 63 nulliparous). The amount of affectionate touch and motherese were analyzed as behavioral measures of caregiving. Saliva was collected before and 10 min after interaction with the infant simulator to analyze oxytocin, testosterone, cortisol, and estradiol levels. Nulliparous women also provided information about their fertility motivation. Linear mixed models indicated that greater use of affectionate touch was associated with lower overall testosterone levels. Cortisol decreased in response to the interaction in both groups. In the primiparous group, the amount of affectionate touch associated inversely with cortisol levels, whereas in the nulliparous group such association was not found. Oxytocin or estradiol reactivity to the simulator did not differ between the groups, nor were these hormones associated with behavior. Higher fertility motivation in nulliparous women was related to more motherese, and lower testosterone levels. Our results indicate that the simulator elicits hormonal reactivity both in mothers and nonmothers, but the patterns of associations between caregiving behavior and hormonal levels may be partially different. These results encourage using the infant simulator to explore hormonal processes related to the transition to parenthood. publishedVersion

Facial emotion recognition (FER) is a fundamental element in human interaction. It begins to develop soon after birth and is important in achieving developmental tasks of middle childhood, such as developing mutual friendships and acquiring social rules of peer groups. Despite its importance, FER research during middle childhood continues to be rather limited. Moreover, research is ambiguous on how the quality of one's early social-emotional environment shapes FER development, and longitudinal studies spanning from infancy to later development are scarce. In this study, we examine how the cohesive, authoritarian, disengaged and enmeshed family system types, assessed during pregnancy and infancy, predict children's FER accuracy and interpretative biases towards happiness, fear, anger and sadness at the age of 10 years (N = 79). The results demonstrated that children from disengaged families (i.e., highly distressed relationships) show superior FER accuracy to those from cohesive families (i.e., harmonious and stable relationships). Regarding interpretative biases, children from cohesive families showed a greater fear bias compared to children from disengaged families. Our findings suggest that even in a relatively low-risk population, variation in the quality of children's early family relationships may shape children's subsequent FER development, perhaps as an evolution-based adaptation to their social-emotional environment. publishedVersion

Attachment theory and research are drawn upon in many applied settings, including family courts, but misunderstandings are widespread and sometimes result in misapplications. The aim of this consensus statement is, therefore, to enhance understanding, counter misinformation, and steer family-court utilisation of attachment theory in a supportive, evidence-based direction, especially with regard to child protection and child custody decision-making. The article is divided into two parts. In the first, we address problems related to the use of attachment theory and research in family courts, and discuss reasons for these problems. To this end, we examine family court applications of attachment theory in the current context of the best-interest-of-the-child standard, discuss misunderstandings regarding attachment theory, and identify factors that have hindered accurate implementation. In the second part, we provide recommendations for the application of attachment theory and research. To this end, we set out three attachment principles: the child’s need for familiar, non-abusive caregivers; the value of continuity of good-enough care; and the benefits of networks of attachment relationships. We also discuss the suitability of assessments of attachment quality and caregiving behaviour to inform family court decision-making. We conclude that assessments of caregiver behaviour should take center stage. Although there is dissensus among us regarding the use of assessments o attachment quality to inform child custody and child-protection decisions, such assessments are currently most suitable for targeting and directing supportive interventions. Finally, we provide directions to guide future interdisciplinary research collaboration. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Sensitivity to human faces has been suggested to be an early emerging capacity that promotes social interaction. However, the developmental processes that lead to cortical specialization to faces has remained unclear. The current study investigated both cortical sensitivity and categorical specificity through event-related potentials (ERPs) previously implicated in face processing in 7-month-old infants (N290) and adults (N170). Using a category-specific repetition/adaptation paradigm, cortical specificity to human faces, or control stimuli (cat faces), was operationalized as changes in ERP amplitude between conditions where a face probe was alternated with categorically similar or dissimilar adaptors. In adults, increased N170 for human vs. cat faces and category-specific release from adaptation for face probes alternated with cat adaptors was found. In infants, a larger N290 was found for cat vs. human probes. Category-specific repetition effects were also found in infant N290 and the P1-N290 peak-to-peak response where latter indicated category-specific release from adaptation for human face probes resembling that found in adults. The results suggest cortical specificity to human faces during the first year of life. Encoding of unfamiliar cat stimuli might explain N290 amplification found in infants.

Study objectives: Night awakening is common in infancy, and some infants continue to have signaled night awakenings throughout early childhood. However, the influence of signaled night awakening on children's social development is less explored. In the present study, longitudinal associations between signaled night awakening, social information processing, and socio-emotional development were measured within the CHILD-SLEEP birth cohort in two groups formed based on parent-reported night awakenings. Methods: At 8 months, there were 77 infants in the waking group (≥3 awakenings) and 69 infants in the nonwaking group (≤1 awakening). At 8 and 24 months, social information processing was measured as children's attention to neutral and emotional faces, and at 24 months, parent-reported socio-emotional behavior was measured with the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment (BITSEA) questionnaire. Results: The two groups showed different patterns of attention to emotional faces. The waking group had a more pronounced attentional bias to fearful vs. happy faces, whereas in the nonwaking group, attention to fearful and happy faces did not differ. In addition, at 24 months, the waking group had more dysregulation problems and lower social competence than the nonwaking group, but no clear differences in internalizing or externalizing problems were found. Conclusions: Our results contribute to the literature by showing that during the first two years of life, signaled night awakening is associated with social information processing and socio-emotional behavior. Study objectives: Night awakening is common in infancy, and some infants continue to have signaled night awakenings throughout early childhood. However, the influence of signaled night awakening on children's social development is less explored. In the present study, longitudinal associations between signaled night awakening, social information processing, and socio-emotional development were measured within the CHILD-SLEEP birth cohort in two groups formed based on parent-reported night awakenings. Methods: At 8 months, there were 77 infants in the waking group (≥3 awakenings) and 69 infants in the nonwaking group (≤1 awakening). At 8 and 24 months, social information processing was measured as children's attention to neutral and emotional faces, and at 24 months, parent-reported socio-emotional behavior was measured with the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment (BITSEA) questionnaire. Results: The two groups showed different patterns of attention to emotional faces. The waking group had a more pronounced attentional bias to fearful vs. happy faces, whereas in the nonwaking group, attention to fearful and happy faces did not differ. In addition, at 24 months, the waking group had more dysregulation problems and lower social competence than the nonwaking group, but no clear differences in internalizing or externalizing problems were found. Conclusions: Our results contribute to the literature by showing that during the first two years of life, signaled night awakening is associated with social information processing and socio-emotional behavior.

The development of social-cognitive abilities in infancy is subject to an intricate interaction between maturation of neural systems and environmental input. We investigated the role of infants’ attachment relationship quality in shaping infants’ neural responses to observed social interactions. One-hundred thirty 10-month-old infants participated in an EEG session while they watched animations involving a distressing separation event that ended with either comforting or ignoring behavior. Frontal asymmetry (FA) in the alpha range - which is indicative of approach-withdrawal tendencies - was measured with EEG. Attachment quality was assessed using the Strange Situation procedure at 12 months. Overall, infants with disorganized attachment showed a lack of right-sided – withdrawal related – FA compared to secure and insecure infants. Furthermore, only avoidant infants exhibited reduced right-sided FA responses following the separation. Contrary to our expectations, the type of response (comforting vs. ignoring) did not elicit differences in FA patterns, and attachment quality did not moderate the effects of the type of response on frontal asymmetry. Implications for research on attachment-related biases in social information processing and on the neural underpinnings of prosocial behaviors are discussed.

Previous research has shown that eye contact, in human-human interaction, elicits increased affective and attention related psychophysiological responses. In the present study, we investigated whether eye contact with a humanoid robot would elicit these responses. Participants were facing a humanoid robot (NAO) or a human partner, both physically present and looking at or away from the participant. The results showed that both in human-robot and human-human condition, eye contact versus averted gaze elicited greater skin conductance responses indexing autonomic arousal, greater facial zygomatic muscle responses (and smaller corrugator responses) associated with positive affect, and greater heart deceleration responses indexing attention allocation. With regard to the skin conductance and zygomatic responses, the human model's gaze direction had a greater effect on the responses as compared to the robot's gaze direction. In conclusion, eye contact elicits automatic affective and attentional reactions both when shared with a humanoid robot and with another human. publishedVersion

Another person's gaze directed to oneself elicits autonomic arousal and facial reactions indicating positive affect in its observer. These effects have only been found to occur with mutual, live eye contact and not in response to direct gaze pictures or when the observer believes that the live person cannot see them. The question remains whether the physical presence of the other person is necessary for these effects. We measured psychophysiological responses to another person's direct versus averted gaze in three conditions: live interaction, bidirectional video call, and watching a mere video. Autonomic arousal was measured with skin conductance responses and facial reactions with facial electromyography. In the live and video call conditions, but not in the mere video condition, direct gaze increased autonomic arousal in comparison to averted gaze. In all three conditions, however, direct gaze elicited positive affective facial reactions. Therefore, an experience of being seen is essential for the autonomic reactions but not for the facial responses that are elicited by another person's direct gaze. Most importantly, the results suggest that the physical presence or proximity of the other person is not necessary for these psychophysiological responses to eye contact.

The present study measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether cortical responses to facial expressions of fear are associated with the development of secure and insecure patterns of infant-mother attachment during the first year. Based on previous findings showing reduced attentional biases to fearful faces in infants with insecure and disorganized attachment, we hypothesized that insecure and disorganized attachment would be associated with reduced ERP differentiation of fearful from non-fearful faces. ERPs to facial expressions were measured at 7 months of age and attachment was assessed at 14 months of age with the Strange Situation Procedure (

Facial electromyographic responses and skin conductance responses were measured to investigate whether, in a neutral laboratory environment, another individual's direct gaze elicits a positive or negative affective reaction in the observer. The results showed that greater zygomatic responses associated with positive affect were elicited by seeing another person with direct as compared to averted gaze. The zygomatic responses were greater in response to another person's direct gaze both when the participant's own gaze was directed towards the other and when the participant was not looking directly towards the other. Compatible with the zygomatic responses, the corrugator activity (associated with negative affect) was decreased below baseline more in response to another person's direct than averted gaze. Replicating previous research, the skin conductance responses were greater to another person's direct than averted gaze. The results provide evidence that, in a neutral context, another individual's direct gaze is an affiliative, positive signal.

Direct gaze has been suggested to convey inclusion. We hypothesized that receiving direct gaze could alleviate distress caused by social exclusion. In two experiments, participants were first either included or excluded, and then shown a video of a person portraying either direct or downward gaze. Basic need satisfaction was measured immediately after the exclusion manipulation and after viewing the eye gaze stimuli. In Experiment 1, after watching the one-minute eye gaze video and “mentally visualizing” an interaction with the person, basic need satisfaction of excluded participants had recovered completely, regardless of the gaze direction. In Experiment 2, participants were shown shorter eye gaze videos in which the person gave task instructions. Participants recovered partially by the delayed measurement, but gaze direction did not moderate this recovery. These results indicate that seeing direct gaze has little or no effect on recovery after social exclusion.

Is another person's direct gaze an inherently positive or negative stimulus? The present study employed the startle reflex methodology to investigate individuals' automatic reactions to another person's direct and averted gaze. In the study, participants' eyeblink startle and cardiac reflexes elicited by a high-intensity acoustic noise stimulus were measured in the context of viewing a live model's direct and downward gaze. Both the eyeblink electromyographic and electrocardiographic data revealed that the startle reflex was modulated by gaze direction. Direct gaze attenuated the eyeblink startle and cardiac reflexes to the acoustic probes compared to those elicited in the context of a downward gaze. These results indicate that the defense reflex is weaker when presented in the context of direct versus downward gaze, and thus suggest that another individual's direct gaze, compared to averted gaze, automatically elicits more positive affective responses in the viewer.

Longitudinal associations between signaled night awakening and executive functioning (EF) at 8 and 24 months in children with (≥ 3 awakenings, n = 77) and without parent-rated fragmented sleep (≤ 1 awakening, n = 69) were studied. EF was assessed with the Switch task at 8 and 24 months. At 24 months, behavioral tasks and parental ratings of EF (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function?Preschool version) were also used. In the Switch task, children with fragmented sleep were less able to learn stimulus sequences and inhibit previously learned responses than children without fragmented sleep. The groups differed only marginally in parental ratings of EF, and no differences were found in behavioral EF tasks. These results suggest that eye movement-based measures may reveal associations between sleep and EF already in infancy and toddlerhood.

Multifactorial research must examine if disorganized attachment is specifically associated with either ODD- or ADHD-symptoms,and the mechanisms through which disorganization may become associated with externalizing problems. The present short-term longitudinal study therefore examined attachment representations, and several competences important for socio-emotional functioning, in relation to ODD- and ADHD-symptoms at T1 (N = 105, M age = 80 months) and T2 (N = 80, M age = 104 months). There was a main effect of disorganized attachment on ODD-symptoms at both time points but not on ADHD-symptoms. Disorganized children also showed lowered attention to facial expressions, a diminished ability to discriminate facial expressions, and elevated emotional reactivity. Emotional reactivity mediated the link between disorganization and ODD-symptoms at T1, but not at T2. The findings support disorganized attachment as a risk-factor for ODD-symptoms rather than ADHD-symptoms, and suggest that disorganization may become associated with ODD-symptoms through broad effects on multiple competences.

It has been suggested that early cry parameters are connected to later cognitive abilities. The present study is the first to investigate whether the acoustic features of infant cry are associated with cognitive development already during the first year, as measured by oculomotor orienting and attention disengagement. Cry sounds for acoustic analyses (fundamental frequency; F0) were recorded in two neonatal cohorts at the age of 0–8 days (Tampere, Finland) or at 6 weeks (Cape Town, South Africa). Eye tracking was used to measure oculomotor orienting to peripheral visual stimuli and attention disengagement from central stimuli at 8 months (Tampere) or at 6 months (Cape Town) of age. Only a marginal positive correlation between fundamental frequency of cry (F0) and visual attention disengagement was observed in the Tampere cohort, but not in the Cape Town cohort. This correlation indicated that infants from the Tampere cohort with a higher neonatal F0 were marginally slower to shift their gaze away from the central stimulus to the peripheral stimulus. No associations between F0 and oculomotor orienting were observed in either cohort. We discuss possible factors influencing the current pattern of results suggesting a lack of replicable associations between neonatal cry and visual attention and suggest directions for future research investigating the potential of early cry analysis in predicting later cognitive development. publishedVersion

The aim of the study was to analyze which maternal factors (depressive symptoms, effect of life events, maternal sensitivity and structuring) and infant characteristics (temperament, social withdrawal symptoms, interactive behavior, genotype, gender) contribute to shared pleasure (SP) in parent-infant interaction. Participants were 113 mother-infant dyads. The mothers filled in the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, the Infant Behavior Questionnaire, and the Life Events Questionnaire. The dyads were videotaped in a free-play situation, and the videos were analyzed using the Alarm Distress Baby Scale and the Emotional Availability Scales. The infants were genotyped for four genes involved in emotion regulation. The occurrence and duration of SP (SP-MD) in mother-infant interactions were analyzed from the videotapes. Higher maternal sensitivity and depressive symptoms, better infant responsiveness, and the infant having the GG variant of the gene tryptophan hydroxylase isoform 2 (TPH2) -307 were associated with the occurrence of SP. Lower level depressive symptoms, better maternal structuring, and greater infant involvement were associated with the longer duration of SP. Those dyads where the mother and infant were best able to read each other's positive cues and to respond to them were more likely to experience mutual positive affect, as seen in SP.El propósito de este estudio fue analizar cuáles factores maternos (síntomas depresivos, efectos de eventos vividos, sensibilidad y estructuración maternas) y características del infante (temperamento, síntomas de despego social, comportamiento interactivo, genotipo, género sexual) contribuyen al placer compartido (SP) en la interacción progenitor-infante. En el estudio participaron 113 díadas madre-infante. Las madres completaron la Escala de Depresión Postnatal de Edimburgo, el Cuestionario de Comportamiento del Infante y el Cuestionario de Eventos de Vida. A las díadas se les grabó en video durante una sesión de juego libre y los videos se analizaron usando la Escala de Alarma de la Angustia del Bebé y las Escalas de Disponibilidad Emocional. A los infantes se les determinó el genotipo en el caso de cuatro genes que tienen que ver con la regulación emocional. Con base en las videograbaciones, se analizó la incidencia y duración de SP (SP-MD) en las interacciones madre-infante. Una más alta sensibilidad materna y síntomas depresivos, mejor sensibilidad por parte del infante, y el hecho de que el infante tenía la variante GG del gen TPH2 -307 se asociaron con la incidencia de SP. Síntomas depresivos de bajo nivel, una mejor estructuración materna y una mayor participación del infante se asociaron con una más larga duración de SP. Aquellas díadas en que la madre y el infante eran más capaces de comprender las señales positivas de cada uno y de responder a las mismas, estaban en mejor condición de experimentar un mutuo afecto positivo, como el que se ve en SP.Le but de cette étude était d'analyser quels facteurs maternels (symptômes dépressifs, effet d’événements de la vie, sensibilité maternelle et structuration maternelle) et quelles caractéristiques du nourrisson (tempérament, symptômes de retrait social, comportement interactif, génotype, genre) contribuent au plaisir partagé (abrégé ici en français PP) dans l'interaction parent-nourrisson. Les participants ont consisté en 113 dyades mère-nourrisson. Les mères ont rempli l'Echelle de Dépression Postnatale d'Edinbourg, le Questionnaire du Comportement du Nourrisson, et le Questionnaire d'Evénements de la Vie. Les dyades ont été filmées à la vidéo pendant une situation de jeu libre et les vidéos ont été analysées en utilisant l'Echelle d'Alarme de Détresse du Bébé et les Echelles de Disponibilité Emotionnelle. Les nourrissons ont été génotypés pour quatre gènes impliqués dans la régulation de l’émotion. L'apparition et la durée du PP (en anglais SP-MD) dans les interactions mère-nourrisson ont été analysées à partir des vidéos. Une sensibilité maternelle plus élevée et des symptômes dépressifs, une meilleure réaction du nourrisson, le nourrisson ayant la variante GG du gène TPH2 -307 étaient liés à l'apparition du PP. Des niveaux plus bas de symptômes dépressifs, une meilleure structuration maternelle et un engagement plus important du nourrisson étaient liés à une durée plus longue du PP. Les dyades où la mère et le nourrisson étaient le plus capables de lire leurs signaux positifs réciproques et d'y répondre étaient moins à même de faire l'expérience d'une affect positif mutuel, comme on le voit dans le PP.Ziel der Studie war es, zu analysieren, welche mütterlichen Faktoren (depressive Symptome, Auswirkungen von Lebensereignissen, mütterliche Sensitivität und Strukturierung) und kindlichen Eigenschaften (Temperament, soziale Rückzugssymptome, interaktives Verhalten, Genotyp, Geschlecht) zur geteilten Freude (SP) in der Eltern-Kind-Interaktion beitragen. Die Teilnehmer waren 113 Mutter-Kind-Dyaden. Die Mütter füllten die Edinburgh-Postnatale-Depressions-Skala, den „Infant Behavior Questionnaire“ und den „Life Events Questionnaire“ aus. Die Dyaden wurden in einer freien Spielsituation per Video aufgenommen und anhand der „Alarm Distress Baby Scale“ und den „Emotional Availability Scales“ analysiert. Die Säuglinge wurden für vier Gene, die an der Emotionsregulation beteiligt sind, genotypisiert. Das Auftreten und die Dauer von SP (SP-MD) in den Mutter-Kind-Interaktionen wurden anhand der Videoaufnahmen analysiert. Höhere mütterliche Sensitivität und depressive Symptome, eine bessere Reaktionsfähigkeit des Säuglings und die GG-Variante des Gens TPH2 -307 beim Säugling waren mit dem Auftreten von SP assoziiert. Ein geringeres Ausmaß an depressiven Symptomen, eine bessere mütterliche Strukturierung und eine stärkere Beteiligung der Säuglinge waren mit einer längeren Dauer von SP assoziiert. Diejenigen Dyaden, bei denen die Mutter und der Säugling am besten in der Lage waren, die positiven Signale des anderen zu lesen und darauf zu reagieren, erlebten eher gemeinsame positive Affekte, wie sie in der SP zu sehen waren.二者の関わり合いにおいて分かち合う喜びに関連する母子の特性 本研究の目的は、どの母親の要因 （抑うつ症状、ライフイベントの影響、母親の感受性および行動様式） と乳児の特性 （気質、社会的引きこもり症状、相互作用的な行動、遺伝子型、性別） が親ー乳幼児の関わり合いにおいて、分かち合う喜び （SP） に寄与するかを分析することである。参加者は 113 組の母子であった。母親たちは、エジンバラ産後うつ病尺度、乳児行動アンケートとライフイベントアンケートに記入した。母子ペアは自由遊びの状況をビデオ録画され、そのビデオは Alarm Distress Baby Scale （乳児不安困難評価）とEmotional Availability Scale （感情適正評価） を使って分析された。乳幼児は、感情調節に関与する4つの遺伝子に遺伝子型を決定された。母子相互作用における分かち合う喜び （SP-MD） の発生と持続時間はビデオテープから分析された。より高い母親の感受性と抑うつ症状、より良い乳幼児の反応性、遺伝子 TPH2-307 の GG 変異体を持つ幼児は分かち合う喜び (SP) の発生と関連していた。低レベルの抑うつ症状、よりよい母親の行動様式と、より多くの乳児からの関与と、分かち合う喜び （SP） のより長い持続時間は関連していた。分かち合う喜び （SP） において見られるように、母親と乳幼児がお互いの肯定的な合図を読むことができ、それらに反応することが最もうまくできた母子は、相互に肯定的な感情を経験する可能性がより高かった。.母嬰特徵與二元互動中的共享愉悅有關 本研究的目的是分析那些母體因素 （抑鬱症狀丶生活事件的影響丶母親的敏感性和結構） 和嬰兒特徵 （氣質丶社會退縮症狀丶互動行為丶基因型丶性別） 有助於親子互動的共享愉悅感 （SP） 。參與者是 113 名母嬰二人組合。母親們填寫 “愛丁堡產後抑鬱量表” 丶 “嬰兒行為問卷” 和 “生活事件調查問卷” 。作者以自由遊戲， 對二人組合進行錄像， 並使用警報遇險嬰兒量表和情緒可用性量表， 對視頻進行分析。作者以嬰兒的四種基因， 對情緒調節的基因分型。從錄像帶分析母嬰相互作用中 SP （SP-MD） 的發生和持續時間。較高的母體敏感性和抑鬱症狀丶較好的嬰兒反應性及具有基因 TPH2-307 的 GG 變體的嬰兒與 SP 相關。較低的抑鬱症狀丶較好的母體結構和較大的嬰兒參與， 和較長的 SP 持續時間有關。如 SP 中所見， 那些母嬰能夠了解彼此的積極提示， 並對其作出反應， 更有可能經歷相互正面的影響。.سمات الأم والرضيع المرتبطة بالمتعة المشتركة في التفاعل الثنائي كان الهدف من الدراسة تحليل العوامل الاموميه (الاعراض الاكتئابية ، وتاثير احداث الحياة ، وحساسية الأمهات وهيكلتها) وخصائص الرضع (المزاج ، واعراض الانسحاب الاجتماعي ، والسلوك التفاعلي ، والنمط الجيني ، ونوع الجنس) لمعرفة العوامل التي تساهم في المتعة المشتركة (SP) أثناء التفاعل بين الوالدين والرضيع. اشترك في الدراسة 113 ثنائي من 113 الأمهات-الرضع. وقام الأمهات باستكمال مقياس أدنبرة لاكتئاب ما بعد الولادة ، واستبيان سلوك الرضع ، واستبيان أحداث الحياة. وتم تصوير الثنائيات بالفيديو في وضع اللعب الحر ، وتم تحليل تسجيلات الفيديو باستخدام مقياس إنذار الكآبة للأطفال ومقياس التوافر العاطفي. وتم تحليل أربعة جينات مسئولة عن تنظيم العاطفة. وتم تحليل حدوث ومده المتعة المشتركة في تفاعلات الام والرضيع من خلال التسجيلات . وارتبط ارتفاع حساسية الام واعراض الاكتئاب ، والاستجابة الأفضل للرضيع ، ووجود نمط GG من الجينات TPH2-307 بحدوث المتعة المشتركة SP. أما أعراض الاكتئاب من المستوي الأدنى ، وتحسين الهيكلة الأمومية ، والمشاركة الاكبر للرضع ارتبطت بمدة أطول من المتعة المشتركة SP. وفي الثنائيات التي كان فيها الام والرضيع أفضل قدرة علي قراءه الإشارات الايجابية من بعضهم البعض والاستجابة لها كانت أكثر عرضه للتاثير الإيجابي المتبادل ، كما اتضح ذلك في نتائج المتعة المشتركة SP.

The family environment shapes children’s social information processing and emotion regulation. Yet, the long-term effects of early family systems have rarely been studied. This study investigated how family system types predict children’s attentional biases toward facial expressions at the age of 10 years. The participants were 79 children from Cohesive, Disengaged, Enmeshed, and Authoritarian family types based on marital and parental relationship trajectories from pregnancy to the age of 12 months. A dot-probe task was used to assess children’s emotional attention biases toward threatening (angry) and affiliative (happy) faces at the early (500 ms) and late (1250 ms) stages of processing. Situational priming was applied to activate children’s sense of danger or safety. Results showed that children from Cohesive families had an early-stage attentional bias toward threat, whereas children from Enmeshed families had a late-stage bias toward threat. Children from Disengaged families had an early-stage attentional bias toward threat, but showed in addition a late-stage bias away from emotional faces (i.e., both angry and happy). Children from Authoritarian families, in turn, showed a late-stage attentional bias toward emotional faces. Situational priming did not moderate the effects of family system types on children’s attentional biases. The findings confirm the influence of early family systems on the attentional biases, suggesting differences in the emotion regulation strategies children have developed to adapt to their family environments.

Measurement of salivary cortisol is a practical and non-invasive tool for studying stress reactivity to various types of stressors even in young infants. Whereas studies using physical stressors during the first months of life have found robust cortisol responses to painful stimuli, research with older infants using psychological stressors (e.g., parental separation) has produced mixed findings, limiting our understanding of potential developmental changes in cortisol reactivity across infancy. In the present study, we used meta-analysis to systematically investigate whether psychological stressor paradigms are associated with measurable cortisol responses in infants under 18 months of age and whether the magnitude of the responses is moderated by the type of psychological stressor (i.e., separation, frustration, novelty, or disruption of parental interaction), infant age, and other potential moderators. Across 47 studies (N = 4095, age range: 3-18 months), we found that commonly used psychological stressor paradigms are associated with a small (Hedges' g = .11) increase in salivary cortisol levels in typically developing infants. Stressor type moderated the effect sizes, and when effect sizes in each category were analyzed separately, only the separation studies were associated with a consistent increase in cortisol following the stressor. Age did not moderate the effect sizes either in the full set of studies or within the separate stressor types. These meta-analytic results indicate that the normative cortisol response to psychological stressors across infancy is small and emphasize the need for standardized stressor paradigms to assess cortisol responses systematically across infancy.

The present study measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether cortical responses to facial expressions of fear are associated with the development of secure and insecure patterns of infant-mother attachment during the first year. Based on previous findings showing reduced attentional biases to fearful faces in infants with insecure and disorganized attachment, we hypothesized that insecure and disorganized attachment would be associated with reduced ERP differentiation of fearful from non-fearful faces. ERPs to facial expressions were measured at 7 months of age and attachment was assessed at 14 months of age with the Strange Situation Procedure (n = 61). Occipitotemporal face-sensitive ERP responses particularly in the time range of the N290 component were related to attachment security at 14 months. Only securely attached infants showed age-typical cortical discrimination of fearful from non-fearful faces at 7 months, whereas a similar pattern of ERP responses was not observed in infants with insecure and disorganized attachment. These results add to previous findings by suggesting that patterns of secure and insecure infant attachment are related to early-emerging differences in the perceptual processing of facial emotions, which could have implications for the development of social competence.

Fragmented sleep is common in infancy. Although night awakening is known to decrease with age, in some infants night awakening is more persistent and continues into older ages. However, the influence of fragmented sleep on development is poorly known. In the present study, the longitudinal relationship between fragmented sleep and psychomotor development (Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development [Bayley-III]; Bayley, 2009) was investigated in infants with (≥3 night awakenings, n = 81) and without fragmented sleep (≤1 night awakening, n = 70) within the CHILD-SLEEP birth cohort at 8 and 24 months of age. Differences in parent-reported (Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire [BISQ]) sleep parameters were studied at 8, 18, and 24 months of age. Group differences in night awakening were stable across all assessment points. Infants with fragmented sleep slept less in total than infants without fragmented sleep and they did not compensate their nocturnal sleep during daytime. Additionally, infants with fragmented sleep spent more time awake at night than infants without fragmented sleep. However, psychomotor development did not differ between infants with and without fragmented sleep at 8 or 24 months of age. Our findings indicate that early onset fragmented sleep did not have a negative effect on psychomotor development within the first 2 years despite the differences in sleep length among infants with and without fragmented sleep. In the future, more specific domains of cognitive development and various factors affecting sleep fragmentation should be taken into account when studying the developmental effects of night awakening in infancy. (PsycINFO Database Record

Automatic extraction of acoustic regions of interest from recordings captured in realistic clinical environments is a necessary preprocessing step in any cry analysis system. In this study, we propose a hidden Markov model (HMM) based audio segmentation method to identify the relevant acoustic parts of the cry signal (i.e., expiratory and inspiratory phases) from recordings made in natural environments with various interfering acoustic sources. We examine and optimize the performance of the system by using different audio features and HMM topologies. In particular, we propose using fundamental frequency and aperiodicity features. We also propose a method for adapting the segmentation system trained on acoustic material captured in a particular acoustic environment to a different acoustic environment by using feature normalization and semi-supervised learning (SSL). The performance of the system was evaluated by analyzing a total of 3 h and 10 min of audio material from 109 infants, captured in a variety of recording conditions in hospital wards and clinics. The proposed system yields frame-based accuracy up to 89.2%. We conclude that the proposed system offers a solution for automated segmentation of cry signals in cry analysis applications. publishedVersion

Research utilizing intranasal oxytocin (OT) administration has shown that OT may increase attention and sensitivity to social cues, such as faces. Given the pivotal role of OT in parental behaviors across mammals, the paucity of intranasal OT research investigating responses to social cues in parents and particularly mothers of young children is a critical limitation. In the current study, we recorded cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether intranasal OT affects the early neural responses to emotional faces in mothers of 1-year-old infants. Using a double-blind, within-subjects design, mothers (n = 38) were administered intranasal OT and placebo on separate sessions and presented with happy and sad infant and adult faces while ERP components reflecting face-sensitive brain activation and attention allocation were measured. We hypothesized that ERP responses to faces would be larger in the OT condition and that the effects of OT on ERP responses would be more pronounced for infant faces. The amplitudes of the face-sensitive N170 ERP component were larger in the OT condition to infant and adult faces, but no clear support was found for the hypothesis that the responses to infant faces would be more susceptible to OT effects than the responses to adult faces. The attention-sensitive late positive potential (LPP) component was not modulated by intranasal substance condition. The results are in line with the view that OT acts to enhance the perceptual salience of social and emotional stimuli. Demonstrating such effects in mothers of young children encourages further investigation of the potential of intranasal OT to affect the perception of social cues relevant for parent-child interaction.

Infants have a strong tendency to look at faces. We examined individual variations in this attentional bias in 7-month-old infants by using a face-distractor competition paradigm and tested in a longitudinal sample whether these variations were associated with outcomes reflecting social behavior at 24 and 48 months of age (i.e., spontaneous helping, emotion understanding, mentalizing, and callous-unemotional traits; N = 100-138). The results showed a robust and distinct attention bias to faces at 7 months, particularly when faces were displaying a fearful expression. This bias declined between 7 and 24 months and there were no significant correlations in attention dwell times between 7 and 24 months of age. Variations in attention to faces at 7 months were not associated with emotion understanding or mentalizing abilities at 48 months of age, but increased attention to faces at 7 months (regardless of facial expression) was related to more frequent helping responses at 24 months and reduced callous-unemotional traits at 48 months of age. Thus, while the results fail to associate infants' face bias with later-emerging emotion understanding and mentalizing capacities, they are consistent with a model whereby increased attention to faces in infancy is linked with the development of affective empathy and responsivity to others' needs.

Recent studies suggest that parental caregiving is associated with adaptive changes in neurocognitive responses to emotional cues and oxytocin function, possibly reflecting the increased need of parents to monitor infants' emotional states. In the current study, we investigated whether the changes associated with motherhood and oxytocin receptor genetic variation rs53576 are specific to the processing of infant cues as opposed to a more general increase in responsiveness to emotional cues. We measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and behavioral recognition responses from mothers of young infants (n = 48) and nulliparous females (n = 46) to infant and adult faces displaying strong and mild intensity emotional expressions. Mothers and GG allele carriers of the OXTR gene showed an early latency (~100 ms) differential frontal ERP response to strong intensity facial expressions, and mothers also showed modulation of the posterior EPN waveform by negative valence. The early frontal ERP modulation was associated with faster emotion recognition performance across participants. Most importantly, these effects were highly specific to infant facial expressions. The results point to a dissociable neurocognitive system that is involved in monitoring infants' emotional cues and may be important in supporting parental caregiving in humans. © 2014 American Psychological Association.

Infant social behavior develops in the context of early parent–infant interaction. Persisting withdrawal from social interaction is a sign of infant distress and is linked with the existence of risk factors. Impaired social behavior of the infant not only may be an indicator of pathology in the infant but the first sign of an effect of a psychosocial risk. In this study, we assessed 39 seven-month-old infants in videotaped interaction with their mothers and then compared the total score of the infant social behavior rated with the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB; A. Guedeney & A. Fermanian, 2001) with variables of mother–infant interaction rated with the Emotional Availability Scales, second edition (EAS 2; Z. Biringen, J. Robinson, & R.N. Emde, 2000). The ADBB total score had a strong negative correlation with maternal sensitivity in the EAS 2 (r = −0.75) and with the EAS 2 child variables of child involvement (r = 0.82) and child responsiveness (r = 0.85), indicating that the infants with more signs of social withdrawal had less sensitive mothers and were less involving and responsive in the interaction. Against our expectations, the ADBB total score had no correlation with maternal structuring. Our results give further support of the ability of the ADBB to screen for early signs of pathology in infant social behavior and problems in parent–infant interaction. La conducta social del infante se desarrolla dentro del contexto de la temprana interaccion entre progenitor e infante. Una persistente retractacion de la interaccion social es un signo de la angustia del infante y esta enlazada con la existencia de factores de riesgo. La conducta social incapacitada del infante pudiera ser no solamente un indicador de patologia del infante, sino tambien la primera senal del efecto de un riesgo sicosocial. En este estudio evaluamos treinta y nueve infantes de 7 meses de edad en una interaccion grabada en video con sus madres y luego comparamos el puntaje total de la observada conducta social del infante calificada con ADBB, con las variables de la interaccion madre-infante calificadas con las Escalas de Disponibilidad Emocional (EAS). El puntaje total de ADBB mostro una fuerte correlacion negativa con la sensibilidad maternal en EAS (r = -0.75) y con las variables del nino de EAS en cuanto a la participacion del nino (r = -0.82) y el interes sensible del nino (r = -0.85), lo cual indica que los infantes con mas senales de retractacion social tenian madres menos sensibles y se mostraron menos involucrados y menos sensiblemente interesados en la interaccion. Contra nuestras expectativas, el puntaje total de ADBB no tuvo correlacion con la estructuracion maternal. Nuestros resultados dan aun mas apoyo a la capacidad de ADBB de detectar senales tempranas de patologia en la conducta social del infante y problemas en la interaccion progenitor-infante. Le comportement relationnel du bebe se developpe dans le contexte de l’interaction precoce parent-bebe. Le retrait persistant de l’interaction relationnelle est un signe de detresse du bebe et lie a l’existence de facteurs de risque. Un comportement relationnel deteriore du bebe peut non seulement etre un indicateur de pathologie chez le bebe mais aussi le premier signe de l’effet d’un risque psychosocial. Dans cette etude nous avons evalue trente neuf bebes de 7 mois dans une interactions filmee a la video avec leurs meres et ensuite avons compare le score total du comportement relationnel observe du bebe avec l’ADBB avec des variables d’interaction mere-bebe evaluees avec les Echelles de Disponibilite Emotionnelle (Emotional Availability Scales, abrege EAS). Le score total ADBB avait une forte correlation negative avec la sensibilite maternelle dans l’EAS (r = -0,75) et avec les variables d’implication de l’enfant pour l’EAS (r = -0,82) et la reaction de l’enfant (r = -0,85), indiquant que les bebes avec plus de signes de retrait relationnel avaient des meres moins sensibles et etaient moins accueillantes et reactives dans l’interaction. Contrairement a ce a quoi on s’attendait, le score total ADBB n’avait aucune correlation avec la structuration maternelle. Nos resultats confirme la capacite qu’a l’ADBB a depister les premiers signes de pathologie dans le comportement relationnel du bebe et les problemes de l’interaction parent-bebe. Das Sozialverhalten von Sauglingen entwickelt sich im Kontext von fruher Eltern-Kind-Interaktion. Anhaltender Ruckzug aus sozialen Interaktionen ist ein Zeichen fur ein Leiden des Sauglings und ist mit dem Bestehen von Risikofaktoren verknupft. Das beeintrachtigte Sozialverhalten des Sauglings muss kein Indikator fur eine Pathologie des Sauglings sein, aber ist das erste Anzeichen eines psychosozialen Risikos. In dieser Studie haben wir neununddreisig 7-Monate alte Sauglinge bei der Interaktion mit ihren Muttern, welche auf Video aufgezeichnet wurde, untersucht. Der Gesamtwert des mit der ADBB beobachteten Sozialverhaltens des Sauglings wurde mit Variablen der Mutter-Kind-Interaktion, die mithilfe der Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) erfasst wurden, verglichen. Der ADBB Gesamtwert hatte eine starke negative Korrelation mit der mutterlichen Sensitivitat in den EAS (r = -0,75) und mit den EAS-Skalen Kindliche Involvierung (r = -0.82) und Kindliche Responsivitat (r = -0.85), was darauf hinweist, dass Sauglinge mit mehr Anzeichen von sozialem Ruckzug weniger sensitive Mutter hatten und weniger involvierend und responsiv in der Interaktion waren. Entgegen unserer Erwartungen zeigte der ADBB Gesamtwert keine Korrelation mit mutterlicher Strukturierung. Unsere Ergebnisse unterstutzen den Einsatz des ADBB zum Screening fur fruhe pathologische Anzeichen im Sozialverhalten von Sauglingen und Probleme in der Eltern-Kind-Interaktion. 抄録：乳児の社会的行動は、早期の親－乳児相互交流のコンテクストの中で発達する。社会的相互交流からの持続的な引きこもりは、乳児の苦痛の兆候であり、リスク因子の存在と関連する。乳児の社会的行動の障害は、乳児の病理の指標であるだけでなく、心理社会的リスクの影響の最初の兆候かもしれない。この研究では、私たちは39人の7か月児を、ビデオ録画された母親との相互交流のなかで評価し、その後ADBBで評価された観察された乳児の社会的行動の全スコアと、情緒応答性尺度Emotional Availability Scales (EAS)で評価された母－乳児相互交流の変数を、比較した。ADBB全スコアは、EASの母親の感受性 (r = -0.75)、EASの子どもの変数である子どもの巻き込まれ(r = -0.82)および応答性(r = -0.85) と強い逆相関があった。これは、社会的引きこもりの兆候が多い乳児の方が母親の感受性がより低く、相互交流の中で巻き込まれたり応答的であることも少ないことを示していた。私たちの予期に反して、ADBBの全スコアは、母親の構造化structuringとは関連がなかった。私たちの結果は、ADBBが、乳児の社会的行動における病理の早期の兆候と親－乳児相互交流における問題のスクリーニングに可能性があることを、更に支持する。

The present study employed the affective priming paradigm and measurements of event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate implicit affective reactions elicited by gaze stimuli. Participants categorized positive and negative words primed by direct gaze, averted gaze and closed eyes. The behavioral response time (RT) results indicated that direct gaze implicitly elicited more positive affective reactions than did closed eyes. Analyses of the ERP responses to the target words revealed a priming effect on the N170 and an interaction on late positive potential (LPP) responses, and congruently with the behavioral results, suggested that, compared to closed eyes, direct gaze was affectively more congruent with positive words and more incongruent with negative words. The priming effect on the N170 response indicated that gaze stimuli influenced the subsequent affective word processing at an early stage of information processing. In conclusion, the present behavioral and electrophysiological evidence suggests that direct gaze automatically activates more positive affective reactions than closed eyes.

Background: Allelic variation in the promoter region of a gene that encodes tryptophan hydroxylase isoform 2 (TPH2), a rate-limiting enzyme of serotonin synthesis in the central nervous system, has been associated with variations in cognitive function and vulnerability to affective spectrum disorders. Little is known about the effects of this gene variant on cognition during development and about possible intermediate developmental steps that lead to the adult phenotype. Here, we examined the hypothesis that the TPH2 -703 may act during early stages of development and bias the acquisition of elementary cognitive processes involved in attention and emotion regulation. Methods: Seven-month-old infants (n = 66) were genotyped for the TPH2 -703 G/T polymorphism (rs4570625) and tested for the efficiency of attention shifts from a stimulus at fixation to a new stimulus in the visual periphery. Results: Compared to TPH2 G/G homozygotes, infants with the T-carrier genotype exhibited a significantly higher number of missing attention shifts. This genotype effect tended to be particularly pronounced when infants had to disengage from an affectively salient stimulus before shifting attention to the peripheral stimulus. The results also showed that TPH2 genotype was indirectly associated, via its effect on attention disengagement, with temperamental emotion regulation (soothability). Conclusions: Together, these results implicate serotonin system genes in early cognitive development and suggest variations in the early-emerging cognitive capacities as a potential developmental precursor of individual differences in emotion regulation and vulnerability to affective disorders.

Orienting of attention to emotionally negative stimuli is accompanied by rapid heart rate (HR) deceleration, reflecting enhanced attentional and sensory processing. We studied whether similar emotional modulation of cardiac responding is observed in infants. HR and eye movements were recorded from 7-month-old infants while they observed a fearful or happy face that was flanked after 700 ms by a peripheral distractor for 2000 ms. An attentional bias for fearful faces was indicated by less frequent and longer latency saccades toward the distractors during fearful than happy trials. HR deceleration was significantly larger during fearful than happy trials on which infants did not make a distractor-directed saccade. For trials with a distractor-directed saccade, no difference between fearful and happy faces emerged. Thus, the bias to attend preferentially to fearful faces is accompanied by a concomitant increase in the cardiac orienting response.

To examine the ontogeny of emotion—attention interactions, we investigated whether infants exhibit adult-like biases in automatic and voluntary attentional processes towards fearful facial expressions. Heart rate and saccadic eye movements were measured from 7-month-old infants (n = 42) while viewing non-face control stimuli, and neutral, happy, and fearful facial expressions flanked after 1000 ms by a peripheral distractor. Relative to neutral and happy expressions, fearful expressions resulted in a greater cardiac deceleration response during the first 1000 ms of face-viewing and in a relatively long-lasting suppression of face-to-distractor saccades. The results suggest that the neural architecture for the integration of emotional significance with automatic attentional orienting as well as more voluntary attentional prioritization processes is present early in life.

Adult-like attentional biases toward fearful faces can be observed in 7-month-old infants. It is possible, however, that infants merely allocate attention to simple features such as enlarged fearful eyes. In the present study, 7-month-old infants (n = 15) were first shown individual emotional faces to determine their visual scanning patterns of the expressions. Second, an overlap task was used to examine the latency of attention disengagement from centrally presented faces. In both tasks, the stimuli were fearful, happy, and neutral facial expressions, and a neutral face with fearful eyes. Eye tracking data from the first task showed that infants scanned the eyes more than other regions of the face, however, there were no differences in scanning patterns across expressions. In the overlap task, infants were slower in disengaging attention from fearful as compared to happy and neutral faces and also to neutral faces with fearful eyes. Together, these results provide evidence that threat-related stimuli tend to hold attention preferentially in 7-month-old infants and that the effect does not reflect a simple response to differentially salient eyes in fearful faces.

The present study investigated whether facial expressions modulate visual attention in 7-month-old infants. First, infants’ looking duration to individually presented fearful, happy, and novel facial expressions was compared to looking duration to a control stimulus (scrambled face). The face with a novel expression was included to examine the hypothesis that the earlier findings of greater allocation of attention to fearful as compared to happy faces could be due to the novelty of fearful faces in infants’ rearing environment. The infants looked longer at the fearful face than at the control stimulus, whereas no such difference was found between the other expressions and the control stimulus. Second, a gap/overlap paradigm was used to determine whether facial expressions affect the infants’ ability to disengage their fixation from a centrally presented face and shift attention to a peripheral target. It was found that infants disengaged their fixation significantly less frequently from fearful faces than from control stimuli and happy faces. Novel facial expressions did not have a similar effect on attention disengagement. Thus, it seems that adult-like modulation of the disengagement of attention by threat-related stimuli can be observed early in life, and that the influence of emotionally salient (fearful) faces on visual attention is not simply attributable to the novelty of these expressions in infants’ rearing environment.

Background: Cross-species evidence suggests that genetic and experiential factors act early in development to establish individual emotional traits, but little is known about the mechanisms that emerge during this period to mediate long-term outcomes. Here, we tested the hypothesis that known genetic and environmental risk conditions may heighten infants’ natural tendency to attend to threat-alerting stimuli, resulting in a cognitive bias that may contribute to emotional vulnerability. Methods: Data from two samples of 5–7-month-old infants (N = 139) were used to examine whether established candidate variations in the serotonin-system genes, i.e., TPH2 SNP rs4570625 (-703 G/T) and HTR1A SNP rs6295 (-1019 G/C), and early rearing condition (maternal stress and depressive symptoms) are associated with alterations in infants’ attention to facial expressions. Infants were tested with a paradigm that assesses the ability to disengage attention from a centrally presented stimulus (a nonface control stimulus or a neutral, happy, or fearful facial expression) toward the location of a new stimulus in the visual periphery (a geometric shape). Results: TPH2 -703 T-carrier genotype (i.e., TT homozygotes and heterozygotes), presence of maternal stress and depressive symptoms, and a combination of the T-carrier genotype and maternal depressive symptoms were associated with a relatively greater difficulty disengaging attention from fearful facial expressions. No associations were found with infants’ temperamental traits. Conclusions: Alterations in infants’ natural attentional bias toward fearful facial expressions may emerge prior to the manifestation of emotional and social behaviors and provide a sensitive marker of early emotional development

Asymmetry of frontal cortical electroencephalogram (EEG) activity in children is influenced by the social environment and considered a marker of vulnerability to emotional and behavioral problems. To determine the reliability of these associations, we used meta-analysis to test whether variation in resting frontal EEG asymmetry is consistently associated with (a) having experienced psychosocial risk (e.g., parental depression or maltreatment) and (b) internalizing and externalizing behavior outcomes in children ranging from newborns to adolescents. Three meta-analyses including 38 studies (N = 2,523) and 50 pertinent effect sizes were carried out. The studies included in the analyses reported associations between frontal EEG asymmetry and psychosocial risk (k = 20; predominantly studies with maternal depression as the risk factor) as well as internalizing (k = 20) and externalizing (k = 10) behavior outcomes. Psychosocial risk was significantly associated with greater relative right frontal asymmetry, with an effect size of d = .36 (p

Several studies have shown that at 7 months of age, infants display an attentional bias toward fearful facial expressions. In this study, we analyzed visual attention and heart rate data from a cross-sectional study with 5-, 7-, 9-, and 11-month-old infants (Experiment 1) and visual attention from a longitudinal study with 5- and 7-month-old infants (Experiment 2) to examine the emergence and stability of the attentional bias to fearful facial expressions. In both experiments, the attentional bias to fearful faces appeared to emerge between 5 and 7 months of age: 5-month-olds did not show a difference in disengaging attention from fearful and nonfearful faces, whereas 7- and 9-month-old infants had a lower probability of disengaging attention from fearful than nonfearful faces. Across the age groups, heart rate (HR) data (Experiment 1) showed a more pronounced and longer-lasting HR deceleration to fearful than nonfearful expressions. The results are discussed in relation to the development of the perception and experience of fear and the interaction between emotional and attentional processes.

Recently, we showed that another person's gaze direction influenced the perceiver's frontal EEG asymmetry and autonomic arousal in response to freely viewed real faces, but not in response to face pictures. However, the lack of a task during the viewing may have resulted in less attention allocation to face pictures vs. live faces. In the present study, the participants performed two online tasks while viewing the faces presented live through an electronic shutter and as pictures on a computer screen. The results replicated those from our previous experiment showing that direct gaze elicited greater relative left-sided frontal EEG asymmetry and autonomic arousal than averted gaze but, again, only in the live condition. However, the results also showed that two live stimulus faces (male and female) elicited differential EEG asymmetry responses in our participants (all females), and the effects of gaze direction were observed only for the (live) female faces. The results suggest that the discriminative responses to live faces vs. pictures are likely to reflect the participants' enhanced mental-state attributions and self-awareness when looking at and being looked by live faces. Thus, the motivation- and affect-related psychophysiological responses to gaze direction are most discriminative in the presence of another person, regardless of whether the face/gaze is actively monitored or not.

Orienting of attention to emotionally negative stimuli is accompanied by rapid heart rate (HR) deceleration, reflecting enhanced attentional and sensory processing. We studied whether similar emotional modulation of cardiac responding is observed in infants. HR and eye movements were recorded from 7-month-old infants while they observed a fearful or happy face that was flanked after 700 ms by a peripheral distractor for 2000 ms. An attentional bias for fearful faces was indicated by less frequent and longer latency saccades toward the distractors during fearful than happy trials. HR deceleration was significantly larger during fearful than happy trials on which infants did not make a distractor-directed saccade. For trials with a distractor-directed saccade, no difference between fearful and happy faces emerged. Thus, the bias to attend preferentially to fearful faces is accompanied by a concomitant increase in the cardiac orienting response.

The adult brain is endowed with mechanisms subserving enhanced processing of salient emotional and social cues. Stimuli associated with threat represent one such class of cues. Previous research suggests that preferential allocation of attention to social signals of threat (i.e. a preference for fearful over happy facial expressions) emerges during the second half of the first year. The present study was designed to determine the age of onset for infants’ attentional bias for fearful faces. Allocation of attention was studied by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) and looking times (in a visual paired comparison task) to fearful and happy faces in 5- and 7-month-old infants. In 7-month-olds, the preferential allocation of attention to fearful faces was evident in both ERPs and looking times, i.e. the negative central mid-latency ERP amplitudes were more negative, and the looking times were longer for fearful than happy faces. No such differences were observed in the 5-month-olds. It is suggested that an enhanced sensitivity to facial signals of threat emerges between 5 and 7 months of age, and it may reflect functional development of the neural mechanisms involved in processing of emotionally significant stimuli.

Although faces are typically perceived in the context of human interaction, face processing is commonly studied by displaying faces on a computer screen. This study on event-related potential examined whether the processing of faces differs depending on whether participants are viewing faces live or on a computer screen. In both the conditions, the participants were shown a real face, a dummy face, and a control object. N170 and early posterior negativity discriminated between faces and control object in both the conditions. Interestingly, early posterior negativity differentiated between the real face and the dummy face only in the live condition. The results indicate that a live face, as a potentially interacting stimulus, is processed differently than an inanimate face already at the early processing stages.

Gaze direction is known to be an important factor in regulating social interaction. Recent evidence suggests that direct and averted gaze can signal the sender's motivational tendencies of approach and avoidance, respectively. We aimed at determining whether seeing another person's direct vs. averted gaze has an influence on the observer's neural approach–avoidance responses. We also examined whether it would make a difference if the participants were looking at the face of a real person or a picture. Measurements of hemispheric asymmetry in the frontal electroencephalographic activity indicated that another person's direct gaze elicited a relative left-sided frontal EEG activation (indicative of a tendency to approach), whereas averted gaze activated right-sided asymmetry (indicative of avoidance). Skin conductance responses were larger to faces than to control objects and to direct relative to averted gaze, indicating that faces, in general, and faces with direct gaze, in particular, elicited more intense autonomic activation and strength of the motivational tendencies than did control stimuli. Gaze direction also influenced subjective ratings of emotional arousal and valence. However, all these effects were observed only when participants were facing a real person, not when looking at a picture of a face. This finding was suggested to be due to the motivational responses to gaze direction being activated in the context of enhanced self-awareness by the presence of another person. The present results, thus, provide direct evidence that eye contact and gaze aversion between two persons influence the neural mechanisms regulating basic motivational–emotional responses and differentially activate the motivational approach–avoidance brain systems.

Previous studies have shown differential event-related potentials (ERPs) to fearful and happy/neutral facial expressions. To investigate whether the brain systems underlying these ERP differences are sensitive to the intensity of fear and happiness, behavioral recognition accuracy and reaction times as well as ERPs were measured while observers categorized low-intensity (50%), prototypical (100%), and caricatured (150%) fearful and happy facial expressions. The speed and accuracy of emotion categorization improved with increasing levels of expression intensity, and 100% and 150% expressions were consistently classified as expressions of the intended emotions. Comparison of ERPs to 100% and 150% expressions revealed a differential pattern of ERPs to 100% and 150% fear expressions over occipital-temporal electrodes 190-290 ms post-stimulus (a negative shift in ERP activity for high-intensity fearful expressions). Similar ERP differences were not observed for 100% and 150% happy expressions, ruling out the possibility that the ERPs to high-intensity fear reflected a response to increased expression intensity per se. Together, these results suggest that differential electrocortical responses to fearful facial expressions over posterior electrodes are generated by a neural system that responds to the intensity of negative but not positive emotional expressions.