Attentional bias to infant faces might be associated with previous care experiences and involvement in childcare in same-sex mothers

Neither Parents’ Sex Nor the Type of Family Modulates Attentional Bias Toward Infant Faces: A Preliminary Study in Different-Sex and Same-Sex Parents

“…Participants completed a modified Go/no-Go task derived from an established paradigm (Bindemann et al, 2005) to measure attentional bias to infant versus adult faces (Dudek & Haley, 2020;Gemignani et al, 2022Gemignani et al, , 2024, 24Go and 12 no-Go). The order of trials was randomized within blocks, but Go trials occurred twice as frequently as no-Go trials.…”

“…First, we expected that infant faces interfered with the task performance more than adult faces, slowing RTs to peripheral stimuli in Go conditions. Given that an effect of the emotional valence of faces was found in some previous research (Pearson et al, 2010(Pearson et al, , 2011a(Pearson et al, , 2011b(Pearson et al, , 2013 but failed to be replicated in other studies (Dudek & Haley, 2020;Gemignani et al, 2022Gemignani et al, , 2024Long et al, 2021;Oliveira et al, 2017;Thompson-Booth et al, 2014a), the potential role of the type of facial expression was further investigated in this study. Secondly, due to the inconsistent findings so far (e.g., Cárdenas et al, 2013;Gemignani et al, 2022;Oliveira et al, 2017;Proverbio et al, 2006), we could not formulate a strong a priori hypothesis on the role of sex on attentional bias to infant faces.…”

“…The attentional bias to infant faces is one of the mechanisms described in adults in response to baby schema (Jia et al, 2022). In other words, it has been consistently found that adults' attention prioritizes infant facial features over other stimuli (Brosch et al, 2007;Dudek & Haley, 2020;Gemignani et al, 2022Gemignani et al, , 2024Oliveira et al, 2017;Pearson et al, 2010Pearson et al, , 2011aPearson et al, , 2011bPearson et al, , 2013Thompson-Booth et al, 2014a, 2014b. The attentional bias to infant faces has been generally measured, using cognitive conflict tasks (e.g., Stroop, Go/No Go, visual search tasks), as the difference in attention in terms of reaction times (RTs) captured by infant versus adult faces; the larger the difference, the greater the cognitive engagement that adults deployed to infant faces (Lucion et al, 2017).…”

“…(Sullivan, 2014), past research on attentional bias to infant faces has focused on the modulating role of infants' facial expressions (Lucion et al, 2017). While a significant effect of the type of emotional valence of faces was detected in some studies (i.e., a greater attentional bias was detected in response to infant distressed faces; Pearson et al, 2010Pearson et al, , 2011aPearson et al, , 2011bPearson et al, , 2013, others did not find such an effect (Dudek & Haley, 2020;Gemignani et al, 2022Gemignani et al, , 2024Long et al, 2021;Oliveira et al, 2017;Thompson-Booth et al, 2014a). Differently, two studies revealed that adults' attentional bias to neutral infant faces was greater compared to the one displayed to happy and sad expressions (Jia et al, 2017(Jia et al, , 2021.…”

“…In addition to this, a comprehensive review by Lucion et al (2017) outlined that the attentional bias to infant faces can be influenced by parental status and sex. Therefore, even though an attentional bias to infant faces was evidenced in both non-parents (Brosch et al, 2007;Cárdenas et al, 2013) and parents (Gemignani et al, 2022(Gemignani et al, , 2024Oliveira et al, 2017;Pearson et al, 2010Pearson et al, , 2011aPearson et al, , 2011bPearson et al, , 2013Thompson-Booth et al, 2014a, 2014b, parents consistently showed a higher attentional bias toward infant cues (Oliveira et al, 2017;Thompson-Booth et al, 2014a, 2014b. Accordingly, hormones, social learning, together with caregiving experiences, may heighten the recruitment of attentional resources to infants in parents, ultimately fostering the parent-child bond (Parsons et al, 2017).…”