Effects of interstimulus intervals on behavioral, heart rate, and event‐related potential indices of infant engagement and sustained attention

Abstract

Maximizing infant attention to stimulus presentation during an EEG or ERP experiment is important for making valid inferences about the neural correlates of infant cognition. The present study examined the effects of stimulus presentation interstimulus interval (ISI) on behavioral and physiological indices of infant attention including infants’ fixation to visual presentation, the amount of heart rate (HR) change during sustained attention, and ERP components. This study compared an ISI that is typically used in infant EEG/ERP studies (e.g., 1,500–2,000 ms) with two shorter durations (400–600 ms and 600–1,000 ms). Thirty-six infants were tested cross-sectionally at 3, 4.5, and 6 months. It was found that using the short (400–600 ms) and medium (600–1,000 ms) ISIs resulted in more visually fixated trials and reduced frequency of fixation disengagement per experimental block. We also found larger HR changes during sustained attention to both of the shorter ISIs compared with the long ISI, and larger ERP responses when using the medium ISI compared to using the short and long ISIs. These data suggest that utilizing an optimal ISI (e.g., 600– 1,000 ms), which increases the presentation complexity and provides sufficient time for information processing, can promote infant engagement and sustained attention during stimulus presentation.

Development of infant sustained attention and its relation to EEG oscillations: an EEG and cortical source analysis study

“…This attenuated alpha PSD during sustained attention might reflect the releasing of the task-relevant areas from inhibition (Klimesch et al, 2007; Orekhova et al, 2001). This inhibition mechanism provides an alternative explanation for the improved behavioral performance and heightened brain activation (e.g., ERPs) during sustained attention (Marllin & Richards, 2012; Richards, 1997, 2003; Xie & Richards, 2016a, b). In other words, the effects of sustained attention on information processing may result from the inhibition of task-irrelevant areas in addition to the increased brain arousal and attention allocation.…”

“…Infant sustained attention has been found to enhance infant ERPs components subserving different brain functional networks (Guy, Zieber, & Richards, 2016; Reynolds & Richards, 2005; Xie & Richards, 2016a, b). The changes in these ERP components provide evidence for the consequences of infant sustained attention effects on brain activity.…”

Development of brain functional connectivity and its relation to infant sustained attention in the first year of life

“…The majority of infants’ information processing takes place during sustained attention (Colombo, ). Infants were observed to be more engaged in stimulus presentation (Xie & Richards, ) and less likely to be distracted by a peripheral distracting stimulus during sustained attention than inattention (Pérez‐Edgar et al., ). Infants also demonstrated better memory for the events they were exposed to during sustained attention (Reynolds & Richards, ; Richards, ).…”

The Relation between Infant Covert Orienting, Sustained Attention and Brain Activity

“…Infant HR decreases and remains at a lower level compared to the pre-stimulus baseline during sustained attention. The decrease of infant HR is accompanied by an increase of brain arousal and alertness (Richards & Casey, 1991; Richards, 2008; Xie & Richards, 2016), which facilitates information processing and allocation of attention resources and improves task-related performance (Reynolds & Richards, 2007; Reynolds et al, 2010). For example, infant sustained attention was found to benefit saccadic localization of peripheral stimuli, which is a process involving attention orienting and saccade planning (Hunter & Richards, 2003; Mallin & Richards, 2012).…”