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Kurth C. Are we virtuously caring or just anxious? Behav Brain Sci 2023; 46:e69. [PMID: 37154355 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x22001960] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
According to Grossmann, the high levels of cooperation seen in humans are the result of a "virtuous caring cycle" on which the increased care that more fearful children receive brings increased cooperative tendencies in those children. But this proposal overlooks an equally well supported alternative on which children's anxiety - not a virtuous caring cycle - explains the cooperative tendencies of humans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Charlie Kurth
- Department of Philosophy, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5328, ; www.charliekurth.com
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2
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Naeem N, Zanca RM, Weinstein S, Urquieta A, Sosa A, Yu B, Sullivan RM. The Neurobiology of Infant Attachment-Trauma and Disruption of Parent-Infant Interactions. Front Behav Neurosci 2022; 16:882464. [PMID: 35935109 PMCID: PMC9352889 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.882464] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2022] [Accepted: 06/13/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Current clinical literature and supporting animal literature have shown that repeated and profound early-life adversity, especially when experienced within the caregiver-infant dyad, disrupts the trajectory of brain development to induce later-life expression of maladaptive behavior and pathology. What is less well understood is the immediate impact of repeated adversity during early life with the caregiver, especially since attachment to the caregiver occurs regardless of the quality of care the infant received including experiences of trauma. The focus of the present manuscript is to review the current literature on infant trauma within attachment, with an emphasis on animal research to define mechanisms and translate developmental child research. Across species, the effects of repeated trauma with the attachment figure, are subtle in early life, but the presence of acute stress can uncover some pathology, as was highlighted by Bowlby and Ainsworth in the 1950s. Through rodent neurobehavioral literature we discuss the important role of repeated elevations in stress hormone corticosterone (CORT) in infancy, especially if paired with the mother (not when pups are alone) as targeting the amygdala and causal in infant pathology. We also show that following induced alterations, at baseline infants appear stable, although acute stress hormone elevation uncovers pathology in brain circuits important in emotion, social behavior, and fear. We suggest that a comprehensive understanding of the role of stress hormones during infant typical development and elevated CORT disruption of this typical development will provide insight into age-specific identification of trauma effects, as well as a better understanding of early markers of later-life pathology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nimra Naeem
- Department of Psychology, Center for Neuroscience, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Emotional Brain Institute, The Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
| | - Roseanna M. Zanca
- Emotional Brain Institute, The Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
| | - Sylvie Weinstein
- Department of Psychology, Center for Neuroscience, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
| | - Alejandra Urquieta
- Department of Psychology, Center for Neuroscience, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
| | - Anna Sosa
- Department of Psychology, Center for Neuroscience, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
| | - Boyi Yu
- Department of Psychology, Center for Neuroscience, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
| | - Regina M. Sullivan
- Department of Psychology, Center for Neuroscience, New York University, New York, NY, United States
- Emotional Brain Institute, The Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
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3
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Abstract
Already as infants humans are more fearful than our closest living primate relatives, the chimpanzees. Yet heightened fearfulness is mostly considered maladaptive, as it is thought to increase the risk of developing anxiety and depression. How can this human fear paradox be explained? The fearful ape hypothesis presented herein stipulates that, in the context of cooperative caregiving and provisioning unique to human great ape group life, heightened fearfulness was adaptive. This is because from early in ontogeny fearfulness expressed and perceived enhanced care-based responding and provisioning from, while concurrently increasing cooperation with, mothers and others. This explanation is based on a synthesis of existing research with human infants and children, demonstrating a link between fearfulness, greater sensitivity to and accuracy in detecting fear in others, and enhanced levels of cooperative behaviors. These insights critically advance current evolutionary theories of human cooperation by adding an early-developing affective component to the human cooperative makeup. Moreover, the current proposal has important cultural, societal, and health implications, as it challenges the predominant view in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies that commonly construe fearfulness as a maladaptive trait, potentially ignoring its evolutionary adaptive functions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tobias Grossmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
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4
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The Relationship between Crawling and Emotion Discrimination in 9- to 10-Month-Old Infants. Brain Sci 2022; 12:brainsci12040479. [PMID: 35448010 PMCID: PMC9029591 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci12040479] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2022] [Revised: 03/30/2022] [Accepted: 03/31/2022] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
The present study examined whether infants’ crawling experience is related to their sensitivity to fearful emotional expressions. Twenty-nine 9- to 10-month-old infants were tested in a preferential looking task, in which they were presented with different pairs of animated faces on a screen displaying a 100% happy facial expression and morphed facial expressions containing varying degrees of fear and happiness. Regardless of their crawling experiences, all infants looked longer at more fearful faces. Additionally, infants with at least 6 weeks of crawling experience needed lower levels of fearfulness in the morphs in order to detect a change from a happy to a fearful face compared to those with less crawling experience. Thus, the crawling experience seems to increase infants’ sensitivity to fearfulness in faces.
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Quadrelli E, Roberti E, Polver S, Bulf H, Turati C. Sensorimotor Activity and Network Connectivity to Dynamic and Static Emotional Faces in 7-Month-Old Infants. Brain Sci 2021; 11:brainsci11111396. [PMID: 34827394 PMCID: PMC8615901 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11111396] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2021] [Revised: 10/20/2021] [Accepted: 10/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study investigated whether, as in adults, 7-month-old infants’ sensorimotor brain areas are recruited in response to the observation of emotional facial expressions. Activity of the sensorimotor cortex, as indexed by µ rhythm suppression, was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG) while infants observed neutral, angry, and happy facial expressions either in a static (N = 19) or dynamic (N = 19) condition. Graph theory analysis was used to investigate to which extent neural activity was functionally localized in specific cortical areas. Happy facial expressions elicited greater sensorimotor activation compared to angry faces in the dynamic experimental condition, while no difference was found between the three expressions in the static condition. Results also revealed that happy but not angry nor neutral expressions elicited a significant right-lateralized activation in the dynamic condition. Furthermore, dynamic emotional faces generated more efficient processing as they elicited higher global efficiency and lower networks’ diameter compared to static faces. Overall, current results suggest that, contrarily to neutral and angry faces, happy expressions elicit sensorimotor activity at 7 months and dynamic emotional faces are more efficiently processed by functional brain networks. Finally, current data provide evidence of the existence of a right-lateralized activity for the processing of happy facial expressions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ermanno Quadrelli
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Edificio U6, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy; (E.R.); (S.P.); (H.B.); (C.T.)
- NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience, 20126 Milano, Italy
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +39-026-448-3775
| | - Elisa Roberti
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Edificio U6, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy; (E.R.); (S.P.); (H.B.); (C.T.)
- NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience, 20126 Milano, Italy
| | - Silvia Polver
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Edificio U6, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy; (E.R.); (S.P.); (H.B.); (C.T.)
| | - Hermann Bulf
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Edificio U6, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy; (E.R.); (S.P.); (H.B.); (C.T.)
- NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience, 20126 Milano, Italy
| | - Chiara Turati
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Edificio U6, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano, Italy; (E.R.); (S.P.); (H.B.); (C.T.)
- NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience, 20126 Milano, Italy
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7
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Liu L, du Toit M, Weidemann G. Infants are sensitive to cultural differences in emotions at 11 months. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0257655. [PMID: 34591863 PMCID: PMC8483341 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257655] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2019] [Accepted: 09/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
A myriad of emotion perception studies has shown infants' ability to discriminate different emotional categories, yet there has been little investigation of infants' perception of cultural differences in emotions. Hence little is known about the extent to which culture-specific emotion information is recognised in the beginning of life. Caucasian Australian infants of 10-12 months participated in a visual-paired comparison task where their preferential looking patterns to three types of infant-directed emotions (anger, happiness, surprise) from two different cultures (Australian, Japanese) were examined. Differences in racial appearances were controlled. Infants exhibited preferential looking to Japanese over Caucasian Australian mothers' angry and surprised expressions, whereas no difference was observed in trials involving East-Asian Australian mothers. In addition, infants preferred Caucasian Australian mothers' happy expressions. These findings suggest that 11-month-olds are sensitive to cultural differences in spontaneous infant-directed emotional expressions when they are combined with a difference in racial appearance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liquan Liu
- School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
- MARCS Institute for Brain and Behaviour, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
- Center for Multilingualism in Society Across the Lifespan, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | - Mieke du Toit
- School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
| | - Gabrielle Weidemann
- School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
- MARCS Institute for Brain and Behaviour, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
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8
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Gut microbiota composition is associated with newborn functional brain connectivity and behavioral temperament. Brain Behav Immun 2021; 91:472-486. [PMID: 33157257 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.11.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 49] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2020] [Revised: 10/27/2020] [Accepted: 11/01/2020] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The gut microbiome appears to play an important role in human health and disease. However, only little is known about how variability in the gut microbiome contributes to individual differences during early and sensitive stages of brain and behavioral development. The current study examined the link between gut microbiome, brain, and behavior in newborn infants (N = 63; M [age] = 25 days). Infant gut microbiome diversity was measured from stool samples using metagenomic sequencing, infant functional brain network connectivity was assessed using a resting state functional near infrared spectroscopy (rs-fNIRS) procedure, and infant behavioral temperament was assessed using parental report. Our results show that gut microbiota composition is linked to individual variability in brain network connectivity, which in turn mediated individual differences in behavioral temperament, specifically negative emotionality, among infants. Furthermore, virulence factors, possibly indexing pathogenic activity, were associated with differences in brain network connectivity linked to negative emotionality. These findings provide novel insights into the early developmental origins of the gut microbiome-brain axis and its association with variability in important behavioral traits. This suggests that the gut microbiome is an important biological factor to consider when studying human development and health.
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Abstract
Historically, research characterizing the development of emotion recognition has focused on identifying specific skills and the age periods, or milestones, at which these abilities emerge. However, advances in emotion research raise questions about whether this conceptualization accurately reflects how children learn about, understand, and respond to others’ emotions in everyday life. In this review, we propose a developmental framework for the emergence of emotion reasoning—that is, how children develop the ability to make reasonably accurate inferences and predictions about the emotion states of other people. We describe how this framework holds promise for building upon extant research. Our review suggests that use of the term emotion recognition can be misleading and imprecise, with the developmental processes of interest better characterized by the term emotion reasoning. We also highlight how the age at which children succeed on many tasks reflects myriad developmental processes. This new framing of emotional development can open new lines of inquiry about how humans learn to navigate their social worlds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashley L. Ruba
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA;,
| | - Seth D. Pollak
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA;,
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10
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Mühlenbeck C, Pritsch C, Wartenburger I, Telkemeyer S, Liebal K. Attentional Bias to Facial Expressions of Different Emotions - A Cross-Cultural Comparison of ≠Akhoe Hai||om and German Children and Adolescents. Front Psychol 2020; 11:795. [PMID: 32411056 PMCID: PMC7199105 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00795] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2019] [Accepted: 03/31/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
The attentional bias to negative information enables humans to quickly identify and to respond appropriately to potentially threatening situations. Because of its adaptive function, the enhanced sensitivity to negative information is expected to represent a universal trait, shared by all humans regardless of their cultural background. However, existing research focuses almost exclusively on humans from Western industrialized societies, who are not representative for the human species. Therefore, we compare humans from two distinct cultural contexts: adolescents and children from Germany, a Western industrialized society, and from the ≠Akhoe Hai||om, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers in Namibia. We predicted that both groups show an attentional bias toward negative facial expressions as compared to neutral or positive faces. We used eye-tracking to measure their fixation duration on facial expressions depicting different emotions, including negative (fear, anger), positive (happy), and neutral faces. Both Germans and the ≠Akhoe Hai||om gazed longer at fearful faces, but shorter on angry faces, challenging the notion of a general bias toward negative emotions. For happy faces, fixation durations varied between the two groups, suggesting more flexibility in the response to positive emotions. Our findings emphasize the need for placing research on emotion perception into an evolutionary, cross-cultural comparative framework that considers the adaptive significance of specific emotions, rather than differentiating between positive and negative information, and enables systematic comparisons across participants from diverse cultural backgrounds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cordelia Mühlenbeck
- Department of Psychology, Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane, Neuruppin, Germany.,Comparative Developmental Psychology, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Carla Pritsch
- Graduate School "Languages of Emotion", Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Isabell Wartenburger
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Silke Telkemeyer
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Katja Liebal
- Comparative Developmental Psychology, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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11
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Ruba AL, Meltzoff AN, Repacholi BM. Superordinate categorization of negative facial expressions in infancy: The influence of labels. Dev Psychol 2020; 56:671-685. [PMID: 31999185 PMCID: PMC7060120 DOI: 10.1037/dev0000892] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
Accurate perception of emotional (facial) expressions is an essential social skill. It is currently debated whether emotion categorization in infancy emerges in a "broad-to-narrow" pattern and the degree to which language influences this process. We used an habituation paradigm to explore (a) whether 14- and 18-month-old infants perceive different facial expressions (anger, sad, disgust) as belonging to a superordinate category of negative valence and (b) how verbal labels influence emotion category formation. Results indicated that infants did not spontaneously form a superordinate category of negative valence (Experiments 1 and 3). However, when a novel label ("toma") was added to each event during habituation trials (Experiments 2 and 4), infants formed this superordinate valance category when habituated to disgust and sad expressions (but not when habituated to anger and sadness). These labeling effects were obtained with two stimuli sets (Radboud Face Database and NimStim), even when controlling for the presence of teeth in the expressions. The results indicate that infants, at 14 and 18 months of age, show limited superordinate categorization based on the valence of different negative facial expressions. Specifically, infants only form this abstract emotion category when labels were provided, and the labeling effect depends on which emotions are presented during habituation. These findings have important implications for developmental theories of emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
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12
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Ruba AL, Repacholi BM. Do Preverbal Infants Understand Discrete Facial Expressions of Emotion? EMOTION REVIEW 2019. [DOI: 10.1177/1754073919871098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
An ongoing debate in affective science concerns whether certain discrete, “basic” emotions have evolutionarily based signals (facial expressions) that are easily, universally, and (perhaps) innately identified. Studies with preverbal infants (younger than 24 months) have the potential to shed light on this debate. This review summarizes what is known about preverbal infants’ understanding of discrete emotional facial expressions. Overall, while many studies suggest that preverbal infants differentiate positive and negative facial expressions, few studies have tested whether infants understand discrete emotions (e.g., anger vs. disgust). Moreover, results vary greatly based on methodological factors. This review also (a) discusses how language may influence the development of emotion understanding, and (b) proposes a new developmental hypothesis for infants’ discrete emotion understanding.
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Peplonska B, Kaluzny P, Trafalska E. Rotating night shift work and nutrition of nurses and midwives. Chronobiol Int 2019; 36:945-954. [PMID: 31056960 DOI: 10.1080/07420528.2019.1602051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Previous research points to some inappropriate nutritional habits among nurses working night shifts. However, the knowledge of specific nutritional components of their diet has been limited. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the association between rotating night shifts of nurses and midwives and their usual dietary intake of energy and nutrients. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 522 Polish nurses and midwives: 251 working rotating night shifts (i.e. working night shift followed by a day off on a subsequent day) and 271 day workers. Polish adaptation of the Food Frequency Questionnaire, regarding 151 food items, was used to assess the usual dietary energy and nutrient intake. Data on occupational history and potential confounders were collected via face-to-face interviews. Body weight, height, waist and hip circumference were measured. Linear regression models: univariate (crude) and multivariate (adjusted) were run, with the nutrient intake as dependent variables, night work characteristics, and important confounders. Among nurses and midwives working rotating night shifts, a significantly higher adjusted mean intake was found for the total energy (2005 kcal vs 1850 kcal) and total fatty acids (77.9 g vs 70.4 g) when compared to day workers, as well as for cholesterol (277 mg vs 258 mg), carbohydrates (266 g vs 244 g) and sucrose (55.8 g vs 48.6 g). Night shift work duration was inversely related to the consumption of calcium, phosphorus, vitamin A, vitamin C and % energy from proteins. The higher energy consumption may contribute to increase risk of overweight and obesity among nurses working night shifts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Beata Peplonska
- a Department of Environmental Epidemiology , Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine , Lodz, Åodz , Poland
| | - Pawel Kaluzny
- a Department of Environmental Epidemiology , Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine , Lodz, Åodz , Poland
| | - Elzbieta Trafalska
- b Department of Nutrition Hygiene and Dietetics , Uniwersytet Medyczny w Lodzi , Lodz , Poland
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Quadrelli E, Conte S, Macchi Cassia V, Turati C. Emotion in motion: Facial dynamics affect infants' neural processing of emotions. Dev Psychobiol 2019; 61:843-858. [DOI: 10.1002/dev.21860] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2018] [Revised: 02/27/2019] [Accepted: 03/17/2019] [Indexed: 01/14/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Ermanno Quadrelli
- Department of Psychology University of Milano‐Bicocca Milano Italy
- NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience Milan Italy
| | - Stefania Conte
- Department of Psychology University of Milano‐Bicocca Milano Italy
- NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience Milan Italy
| | - Viola Macchi Cassia
- Department of Psychology University of Milano‐Bicocca Milano Italy
- NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience Milan Italy
| | - Chiara Turati
- Department of Psychology University of Milano‐Bicocca Milano Italy
- NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience Milan Italy
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15
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Grossmann T, Missana M, Krol KM. The neurodevelopmental precursors of altruistic behavior in infancy. PLoS Biol 2018; 16:e2005281. [PMID: 30252842 PMCID: PMC6155440 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2005281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2018] [Accepted: 08/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Altruistic behavior is considered a key feature of the human cooperative makeup, with deep ontogenetic roots. The tendency to engage in altruistic behavior varies between individuals and has been linked to differences in responding to fearful faces. The current study tests the hypothesis that this link exists from early in human ontogeny. Using eye tracking, we examined whether attentional responses to fear in others at 7 months of age predict altruistic behavior at 14 months of age. Our analysis revealed that altruistic behavior in toddlerhood was predicted by infants' attention to fearful faces but not happy or angry faces. Specifically, infants who showed heightened initial attention to (i.e., prolonged first look) followed by greater disengagement (i.e., reduced attentional bias over 15 seconds) from fearful faces at 7 months displayed greater prosocial behavior at 14 months of age. Our data further show that infants' attentional bias to fearful faces and their altruistic behavior was predicted by brain responses in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), measured through functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). This suggests that, from early in ontogeny, variability in altruistic helping behavior is linked to our responsiveness to seeing others in distress and brain processes implicated in attentional control. These findings critically advance our understanding of the emergence of altruism in humans by identifying responsiveness to fear in others as an early precursor contributing to variability in prosocial behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tobias Grossmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Manuela Missana
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
- Institute of Educational Sciences, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Kathleen M. Krol
- Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
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16
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How to build a helpful baby: a look at the roots of prosociality in infancy. Curr Opin Psychol 2018; 20:21-24. [DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.08.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2017] [Revised: 06/26/2017] [Accepted: 08/03/2017] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
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17
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Bayet L, Quinn PC, Laboissière R, Caldara R, Lee K, Pascalis O. Fearful but not happy expressions boost face detection in human infants. Proc Biol Sci 2018; 284:rspb.2017.1054. [PMID: 28878060 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2017] [Accepted: 07/28/2017] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Human adults show an attentional bias towards fearful faces, an adaptive behaviour that relies on amygdala function. This attentional bias emerges in infancy between 5 and 7 months, but the underlying developmental mechanism is unknown. To examine possible precursors, we investigated whether 3.5-, 6- and 12-month-old infants show facilitated detection of fearful faces in noise, compared to happy faces. Happy or fearful faces, mixed with noise, were presented to infants (N = 192), paired with pure noise. We applied multivariate pattern analyses to several measures of infant looking behaviour to derive a criterion-free, continuous measure of face detection evidence in each trial. Analyses of the resulting psychometric curves supported the hypothesis of a detection advantage for fearful faces compared to happy faces, from 3.5 months of age and across all age groups. Overall, our data show a readiness to detect fearful faces (compared to happy faces) in younger infants that developmentally precedes the previously documented attentional bias to fearful faces in older infants and adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laurie Bayet
- LPNC, Université Grenoble-Alpes, 38000 Grenoble, France .,LPNC, CNRS, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Paul C Quinn
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
| | - Rafael Laboissière
- LPNC, Université Grenoble-Alpes, 38000 Grenoble, France.,LPNC, CNRS, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Roberto Caldara
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Kang Lee
- Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Olivier Pascalis
- LPNC, Université Grenoble-Alpes, 38000 Grenoble, France.,LPNC, CNRS, 38000 Grenoble, France
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18
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Heck A, Hock A, White H, Jubran R, Bhatt RS. Further evidence of early development of attention to dynamic facial emotions: Reply to Grossmann and Jessen. J Exp Child Psychol 2016; 153:155-162. [PMID: 27686256 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.08.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2016] [Accepted: 08/22/2016] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Adults exhibit enhanced attention to negative emotions like fear, which is thought to be an adaptive reaction to emotional information. Previous research, mostly conducted with static faces, suggests that infants exhibit an attentional bias toward fearful faces only at around 7months of age. In a recent study (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2016, Vol. 147, pp. 100-110), we found that 5-month-olds also exhibit heightened attention to fear when tested with dynamic face videos. This indication of an earlier development of an attention bias to fear raises questions about developmental mechanisms that have been proposed to underlie this function. However, Grossmann and Jessen (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2016, Vol. 153, pp. 149-154) argued that this result may have been due to differences in the amount of movement in the videos rather than a response to emotional information. To examine this possibility, we tested a new sample of 5-month-olds exactly as in the original study (Heck, Hock, White, Jubran, & Bhatt, 2016) but with inverted faces. We found that the fear bias seen in our study was no longer apparent with inverted faces. Therefore, it is likely that infants' enhanced attention to fear in our study was indeed a response to emotions rather than a reaction to arbitrary low-level stimulus features. This finding indicates enhanced attention to fear at 5months and underscores the need to find mechanisms that engender the development of emotion knowledge early in life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alison Heck
- University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
| | - Alyson Hock
- University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
| | - Hannah White
- University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
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