The neural basis of non-verbal communication-enhanced processing of perceived give-me gestures in 9-month-old girls

Intact or impaired? The understanding of give-and-take interactions in children with autism spectrum disorder

BACKGROUND

Understanding and predicting others' behavior in a dynamic and rapidly changing world is a fundamental aspect of social interactions. However, it remains unclear as to whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) could understand and predict goal-directed social actions.

AIMS

To investigate the understanding of give-and-take interactions in children with ASD with the use of eye tracking.

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

Experiment 1 and 2 investigated the understanding of giving and taking respectively in 5-to 8-year-old Chinese children with ASD and typically developing children by using the eye-tracking technology.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

We found that children with ASD could predict actions, but they were less proficient in processing give-and-take interactions. Moreover, children with ASD showed impaired understanding of giving but not taking.

CONCLUSIONS

These results indicate that the basic mechanisms of action prediction are intact in children with ASD whereas there may be deficits in the top-down social processing of the giving gesture.

Neural correlates of face processing associated with development of social communication in 12-month infants with familial risk of autism spectrum disorder

BACKGROUND

Differences in face processing in individuals with ASD is hypothesized to impact the development of social communication skills. This study aimed to characterize the neural correlates of face processing in 12-month-old infants at familial risk of developing ASD by (1) comparing face-sensitive event-related potentials (ERP) (Nc, N290, P400) between high-familial-risk infants who develop ASD (HR-ASD), high-familial-risk infants without ASD (HR-NoASD), and low-familial-risk infants (LR), and (2) evaluating how face-sensitive ERP components are associated with development of social communication skills.

METHODS

12-month-old infants participated in a study in which they were presented with alternating images of their mother's face and the face of a stranger (LR = 45, HR-NoASD = 41, HR-ASD = 24) as EEG data were collected. Parent-reported and laboratory-observed social communication measures were obtained at 12 and 18 months. Group differences in ERP responses were evaluated using ANOVA, and multiple linear regressions were conducted with maternal education and outcome groups as covariates to assess relationships between ERP and behavioral measures.

RESULTS

For each of the ERP components (Nc [negative-central], N290, and P400), the amplitude difference between mother and stranger (Mother-Stranger) trials was not statistically different between the three outcome groups (Nc p = 0.72, N290 p = 0.88, P400 p = 0.91). Marginal effects analyses found that within the LR group, a greater Nc Mother-Stranger response was associated with better expressive language skills on the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, controlling for maternal education and outcome group effects (marginal effects dy/dx = 1.15; p < 0.01). No significant associations were observed between the Nc and language or social measures in HR-NoASD or HR-ASD groups. In contrast, specific to the HR-ASD group, amplitude difference between the Mother versus Stranger P400 response was positively associated with expressive (dy/dx = 2.1, p < 0.001) and receptive language skills at 12 months (dy/dx = 1.68, p < 0.005), and negatively associated with social affect scores on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (dy/dx = - 1.22, p < 0.001) at 18 months.

CONCLUSIONS

In 12-month-old infant siblings with subsequent ASD, increased P400 response to Mother over Stranger faces is positively associated with concurrent language and future social skills.

Understanding the causes and consequences of variability in infant ERP editing practices

The current study examined the effects of variability on infant event-related potential (ERP) data editing methods. A widespread approach for analyzing infant ERPs is through a trial-by-trial editing process. Researchers identify electroencephalogram (EEG) channels containing artifacts and reject trials that are judged to contain excessive noise. This process can be performed manually by experienced researchers, partially automated by specialized software, or completely automated using an artifact-detection algorithm. Here, we compared the editing process from four different editors-three human experts and an automated algorithm-on the final ERP from an existing infant EEG dataset. Findings reveal that agreement between editors was low, for both the numbers of included trials and of interpolated channels. Critically, variability resulted in differences in the final ERP morphology and in the statistical results of the target ERP that each editor obtained. We also analyzed sources of disagreement by estimating the EEG characteristics that each human editor considered for accepting an ERP trial. In sum, our study reveals significant variability in ERP data editing pipelines, which has important consequences for the final ERP results. These findings represent an important step toward developing best practices for ERP editing methods in infancy research.

Judgmental perception of co-speech gestures in MDD

Cognitive bias in depression may increase sensitivity to judgmental appraisal of communicative cues. Nonverbal communication encompassing co-speech gestures is crucial for social functioning and is perceived differentially by men and women, however, little is known about the effect of depression on the perception of appraisal. We investigate if a cognitive bias influences the perception of appraisal and judgement of nonverbal communication in major depressive disorder (MDD). During watching videos of speakers retelling a story and gesticulating, 22 patients with MDD and 22 matched healthy controls pressed a button when they perceived the speaker as appraising in a positive or negative way. The speakers were presented in four different conditions (with and without speech and with natural speaker or as stick-figures) to evaluate context effects. Inter-subject covariance (ISC) of the button-press time series measured consistency across the groups of the response pattern depending on the factors diagnosis and gender. Significant effects emerged for the factors diagnosis (p = .002), gender (p = .007), and their interaction (p < .001). The female healthy controls perceived the gestures more consistently appraising than male controls, the female patients, and male patients whereas the latter three groups did not differ. Further, the ISC measure for consistency correlated negatively with depression severity. The natural speaker video without audio speech yielded the highest responses consistency. Indeed co-speech gestures may drive these ISC effects because number of gestures but not facial shrugs correlated with ISC amplitude. During co-speech gestures, a cognitive bias led to disturbed perception of appraisal in MDD for females. Social communication is critical for functional outcomes in mental disorders; thus perception of gestural communication is important in rehabilitation.

The sticky mittens paradigm: A critical appraisal of current results and explanations

Almost two decades ago, the sticky mittens paradigm was demonstrated as a way to train reaching and grasping behaviors in pre‐reaching infants, and consequently improve visual attentional abilities. In that first study, Needham and colleagues fitted 3‐month‐old infants with Velcro loop‐covered mittens and allowed them to interact with Velcro hook‐covered toys over the course of 2 weeks. In this review, we scrutinize the 17 studies that have followed those first sticky mittens results in regards to the motor, social perception, and visual attentional domains. Furthermore, we discuss the proposed mechanisms of the sticky mittens training. Current evidence strongly suggests that sticky mittens training facilitates social perception, which is consistent with prior correlational work showing links between action production and action perception. However, studies targeting motor and visual attentional abilities have too diverse results to warrant firm conclusions. We conclude that future research should focus on uncovering if there is a connection between sticky mittens training and motor behavior.

Hand posture as localizing sign in adult focal epileptic seizures

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to identify specific ictal hand postures (HPs) as localizing signs of the epileptogenic zone (EZ) in patients with frontal or temporal lobe epilepsy.

METHODS

In this study, we retrospectively analyzed ictal semiology of 489 temporal lobe or frontal lobe seizures recorded over a 6-year period at the Seizure Disorder Center at University of California, Los Angeles in the USA (45 patients) or at the C. Munari Epilepsy Surgery Center at Niguarda Hospital in Milan, Italy (34 patients). Our criterion for EZ localization was at least 2 years of seizure freedom after surgery. We analyzed presence and latency of ictal HP. We then examined whether specific initial HPs are predictive for EZ localization.

RESULTS

We found that ictal HPs were present in 72.5% of patients with frontal and 54.5% of patients with temporal lobe seizures. We divided HPs into 6 classes depending on the reciprocal position of the fingers ("fist," "cup," "politician's fist," "pincer," "extended hand," "pointing"). We found a striking correlation between EZ localization and ictal HP. In particular, fist and pointing HPs are strongly predictive of frontal lobe EZ; cup, politician's fist, and pincer are strongly predictive of temporal lobe EZ.

INTERPRETATION

Our study offers simple ictal signs that appear to clarify differential diagnosis of temporal versus frontal lobe EZ localization. These results are meant to be used as a novel complementary tool during presurgical evaluation for epilepsy. At the same time, they give us important insight into the neurophysiology of hand movements. ANN NEUROL 2019;86:793-800.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy in toddlers: Neural differentiation of communicative cues and relation to future language abilities

The toddler and preschool years are a time of significant development in both expressive and receptive communication abilities. However, little is known about the neurobiological underpinnings of language development during this period, likely due to difficulties acquiring functional neuroimaging data. Functional near‐infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a motion‐tolerant neuroimaging technique that assesses cortical brain activity and can be used in very young children. Here, we use fNIRS during perception of communicative and noncommunicative speech and gestures in typically developing 2‐ and 3‐year‐olds (Study 1, n = 15, n = 12 respectively) and in a sample of 2‐year‐olds with both fNIRS data collected at age 2 and language outcome data at age 3 (Study 2, n = 18). In Study 1, 2‐ and 3‐year‐olds differentiated between communicative and noncommunicative stimuli as well as between speech and gestures in the left lateral frontal region. However, 2‐year‐olds showed different patterns of activation from 3‐year‐olds in right medial frontal regions. In Study 2, which included two toddlers identified with early language delays along with 16 typically developing toddlers, neural differentiation of communicative stimuli in the right medial frontal region at age 2 predicted receptive language at age 3. Specifically, after accounting for variance related to verbal ability at age 2, increased neural activation for communicative gestures (vs. both communicative speech and noncommunicative gestures) at age 2 predicted higher receptive language scores at age 3. These results are discussed in the context of the underlying mechanisms of toddler language development and use of fNIRS in prediction of language outcomes.

Do you understand what I want to tell you? Early sensitivity in bilinguals' iconic gesture perception and production

Previous research has shown differences in monolingual and bilingual communication. We explored whether monolingual and bilingual pre-schoolers (N = 80) differ in their ability to understand others' iconic gestures (gesture perception) and produce intelligible iconic gestures themselves (gesture production) and how these two abilities are related to differences in parental iconic gesture frequency. In a gesture perception task, the experimenter replaced the last word of every sentence with an iconic gesture. The child was then asked to choose one of four pictures that matched the gesture as well as the sentence. In a gesture production task, children were asked to indicate 'with their hands' to a deaf puppet which objects to select. Finally, parental gesture frequency was measured while parents answered three different questions. In the iconic gesture perception task, monolingual and bilingual children did not differ. In contrast, bilinguals produced more intelligible gestures than their monolingual peers. Finally, bilingual children's parents gestured more while they spoke than monolingual children's parents. We suggest that bilinguals' heightened sensitivity to their interaction partner supports their ability to produce intelligible gestures and results in a bilingual advantage in iconic gesture production.

How social is the chaser? Neural correlates of chasing perception in 9-month-old infants

We investigated the neural correlates of chasing perception in infancy to determine whether animated interactions are processed as social events. By using EEG and an ERP design with animations of simple geometric shapes, we examined whether the positive posterior (P400) component, previously found in response to social stimuli, as well as the attention related negative fronto-central component (Nc), differs when infants observed a chaser versus a non-chaser. In Study 1, the chaser was compared to an inanimate object. In Study 2, the chaser was compared to an animate but not chasing agent (randomly moving agent). Results demonstrate no difference in the Nc component, but statistically higher P400 amplitude when the chasing agent was compared to either an inanimate object or a random object. We also find a difference in the N290 component in both studies and in the P200 component in Study 2, when the chasing agent is compared to the randomly moving agent. The present studies demonstrate for the first time that infants' process correlated motion such as chasing as a social interaction. The perception of the chasing agent elicits stronger time-locked responses, denoting a link between motion perception and social cognition.

Enhanced Neural Processing of Goal-directed Actions After Active Training in 4-Month-Old Infants

The current study explores the neural correlates of action perception and its relation to infants' active experience performing goal-directed actions. Study 1 provided active training with sticky mittens that enables grasping and object manipulation in prereaching 4-month-olds. After training, EEG was recorded while infants observed images of hands grasping toward (congruent) or away from (incongruent) objects. We demonstrate that brief active training facilitates social perception as indexed by larger amplitude of the P400 ERP component to congruent compared with incongruent trials. Study 2 presented 4-month-old infants with passive training in which they observed an experimenter perform goal-directed reaching actions, followed by an identical ERP session to that used in Study 1. The second study did not demonstrate any differentiation between congruent and incongruent trials. These results suggest that (1) active experience alters the brains' response to goal-directed actions performed by others and (2) visual exposure alone is not sufficient in developing the neural networks subserving goal processing during action observation in infancy.