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Lozano I, López Pérez D, Laudańska Z, Malinowska‐Korczak A, Szmytke M, Radkowska A, Tomalski P. Changes in selective attention to articulating mouth across infancy: Sex differences and associations with language outcomes. INFANCY 2022; 27:1132-1153. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12496] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2021] [Revised: 05/27/2022] [Accepted: 07/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Itziar Lozano
- Department of Cognitive Psychology and Neurocognitive Science Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland
- Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Faculty of Psychology Madrid Spain
| | - David López Pérez
- Neurocognitive Development Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw Poland
| | - Zuzanna Laudańska
- Neurocognitive Development Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw Poland
| | - Anna Malinowska‐Korczak
- Neurocognitive Development Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw Poland
| | - Magdalena Szmytke
- Neurocognitive Development Lab, Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland
| | - Alicja Radkowska
- Neurocognitive Development Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw Poland
- Neurocognitive Development Lab, Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland
| | - Przemysław Tomalski
- Neurocognitive Development Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw Poland
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Carnevali L, Gui A, Jones EJH, Farroni T. Face Processing in Early Development: A Systematic Review of Behavioral Studies and Considerations in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic. Front Psychol 2022; 13:778247. [PMID: 35250718 PMCID: PMC8894249 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.778247] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2021] [Accepted: 01/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Human faces are one of the most prominent stimuli in the visual environment of young infants and convey critical information for the development of social cognition. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mask wearing has become a common practice outside the home environment. With masks covering nose and mouth regions, the facial cues available to the infant are impoverished. The impact of these changes on development is unknown but is critical to debates around mask mandates in early childhood settings. As infants grow, they increasingly interact with a broader range of familiar and unfamiliar people outside the home; in these settings, mask wearing could possibly influence social development. In order to generate hypotheses about the effects of mask wearing on infant social development, in the present work, we systematically review N = 129 studies selected based on the most recent PRISMA guidelines providing a state-of-the-art framework of behavioral studies investigating face processing in early infancy. We focused on identifying sensitive periods during which being exposed to specific facial features or to the entire face configuration has been found to be important for the development of perceptive and socio-communicative skills. For perceptive skills, infants gradually learn to analyze the eyes or the gaze direction within the context of the entire face configuration. This contributes to identity recognition as well as emotional expression discrimination. For socio-communicative skills, direct gaze and emotional facial expressions are crucial for attention engagement while eye-gaze cuing is important for joint attention. Moreover, attention to the mouth is particularly relevant for speech learning. We discuss possible implications of the exposure to masked faces for developmental needs and functions. Providing groundwork for further research, we encourage the investigation of the consequences of mask wearing for infants' perceptive and socio-communicative development, suggesting new directions within the research field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Carnevali
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
| | - Anna Gui
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Emily J. H. Jones
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Teresa Farroni
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
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Segal SC, Moulson MC. Parent-Infant Interaction Tasks Adapted for Remote Testing: Strengths, Challenges, and Recommendations. Front Psychol 2021; 12:733275. [PMID: 34721201 PMCID: PMC8548735 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.733275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2021] [Accepted: 09/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The closure of in-person laboratories and decreased safety of face-to-face interactions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic jeopardized the ability of many developmental researchers to continue data collection during this time. Disruptions in data collection are particularly damaging to longitudinal studies, in which the testing of different age groups occurs on a continuous basis, and data loss at one time point can have cascading effects across subsequent time points and threaten the viability of the study. In an effort to continue collecting data for a longitudinal study on emotion development started in-person pre-pandemic, we adapted two parent-infant interaction tasks (free-play task and toy removal task) for a remote testing framework. Our procedure for pivoting these tasks to a supervised, remote online testing framework is outlined and the associated strengths and challenges of testing in this format (e.g., feasibility and implementation, testing environment and task setup validity, and accessibility, recruitment, and diversity) are critically evaluated. Considerations for applying this framework to other behavioral tasks are discussed and recommendations are provided.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shira C Segal
- Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada
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Segal SC, Marquis AR, Moulson MC. Are our samples representative? Understanding whether temperament influences infant dropout rates at 3 and 7 months. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 65:101630. [PMID: 34418795 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101630] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2020] [Revised: 07/08/2021] [Accepted: 08/10/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
In this study, we examined whether infant temperament predicted study dropout at 3.5 and 7 months and whether dropout was stable across time. Dropout was measured across four experimental tasks (free-play, ERP, still-face, and eye tracking). Temperament was not related to dropout at either timepoint. Dropout was not stable across time, nor was it stable across tasks. These findings suggest that individual differences in temperament are not systematically related to study completion across experimental tasks with varied requirements. These findings additionally suggest that dropout is not consistent across tasks, which may support the utility of multi-study data collection methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shira C Segal
- Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5B 2K3, Canada.
| | - Alexandra R Marquis
- Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5B 2K3, Canada
| | - Margaret C Moulson
- Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5B 2K3, Canada
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Noonan CF, Hunter BK, Markant J. Dynamic emotional messages differentially affect 6-month-old infants' attention to eyes and gaze cues. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 64:101626. [PMID: 34390965 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101626] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/05/2021] [Revised: 07/16/2021] [Accepted: 08/02/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Infants often experience interactions in which caregivers use dynamic messages to convey their affective and communicative intent. These dynamic emotional messages may shape the development of emotion discrimination skills and shared attention by influencing infants' attention to internal facial features and their responses to eye gaze cues. However, past research examining infants' responses to emotional faces has predominantly focused on classic, stereotyped expressions (e.g., happy, sad, angry) that may not reflect the variability that infants experience in their daily interactions. The present study therefore examined forty-two 6-month-old infants' attention to eyes vs. mouth and gaze cueing responses across multiple dynamic emotional messages that are common to infant-directed interactions. Overall, infants looked more to the eyes during messages with negative affect, but this increased attention to the eyes during these message conditions did not directly facilitate gaze cueing. Infants instead showed reliable gaze cueing only after messages with positive and neutral affect. We additionally observed gender differences in infants' attention to internal face features and subsequent gaze cueing responses. Female infants spent more time looking at the eyes during the dynamic emotional messages and showed increased initial orienting and longer looking to gaze-cued objects following positive messages, whereas male infants showed these gaze cueing effects following neutral messages. These results suggest that variability in caregivers' communication can shape infants' attention to and processing of emotion and gaze information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claire F Noonan
- Department of Psychology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, United States
| | - Brianna K Hunter
- Department of Psychology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, United States
| | - Julie Markant
- Department of Psychology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, United States; Tulane Brain Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, United States.
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Prunty JE, Keemink JR, Kelly DJ. Infants scan static and dynamic facial expressions differently. INFANCY 2021; 26:831-856. [PMID: 34288344 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12426] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2020] [Revised: 07/02/2021] [Accepted: 07/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Despite being inherently dynamic phenomena, much of our understanding of how infants attend and scan facial expressions is based on static face stimuli. Here we investigate how six-, nine-, and twelve-month infants allocate their visual attention toward dynamic-interactive videos of the six basic emotional expressions, and compare their responses with static images of the same stimuli. We find infants show clear differences in how they attend and scan dynamic and static expressions, looking longer toward the dynamic-face and lower-face regions. Infants across all age groups show differential interest in expressions, and show precise scanning of regions "diagnostic" for emotion recognition. These data also indicate that infants' attention toward dynamic expressions develops over the first year of life, including relative increases in interest and scanning precision toward some negative facial expressions (e.g., anger, fear, and disgust).
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - David J Kelly
- School of Psychology, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
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