Eye contact during live social interaction modulates infants’ oscillatory brain activity

Abstract

We examined infants' oscillatory brain activity during a live interaction with an adult who showed them novel objects. Activation in the alpha frequency range was assessed. Nine-month-old infants responded with desynchronization of alpha-band activity when looking at an object together with an adult during a social interaction involving eye contact. When infant and experimenter only looked at the object without engaging in eye contact, no such effect was observed. Results are interpreted in terms of activation of a generic semantic knowledge system induced by eye contact during a social interaction.

Theta- and alpha-band EEG activity in response to eye gaze cues in early infancy

“…We speculate that it, as such, enables or facilitates early social learning mechanisms in infants. This is in line with studies that relate alpha desynchronization to joint attention in infants and adults (Hoehl, Michel, et al, 2014;Lachat et al, 2012). As infants at 4 months of age are already sensitive to looker-object relations and use eye gaze for facilitated object learning (e.g., Reid et al, 2004), we expected alpha desynchronization in response to object-directed eye gaze from 4 months onwards.…”

“…This result was interpreted as reflecting higher arousal induced by mutual attentiveness. Hoehl, Michel, Reid, Parise, and Striano (2014) recently showed similar effects in 9-month-old infants in a live paradigm. Here, alpha (5-7 Hz) desynchronized in response to novel objects only when these objects were presented in a joint attention situation (Hoehl, Michel, et al, 2014), indicating that alpha-band activity varied depending on the social context in which stimuli were perceived.…”

“…Social cues such as eye gaze or head turn can guide infants' attention and can lead to enhanced memory encoding of cued objects in 4-month-olds (Hoehl, Wahl, et al, 2014;Hood, Willen, & Driver, 1998;Reid & Striano, 2005;Reid et al, 2004;Wahl et al, 2013). Thus, alpha desynchronization in the object-directed condition may reflect focused attention to gaze cued objects and thereby be related to social learning processes (Hoehl, Michel, et al, 2014).…”

“…Here, alpha (5-7 Hz) desynchronized in response to novel objects only when these objects were presented in a joint attention situation (Hoehl, Michel, et al, 2014), indicating that alpha-band activity varied depending on the social context in which stimuli were perceived. Alpha desynchronization was therefore suggested to relate to early social learning processes in infants (Hoehl, Michel, et al, 2014).…”

“…The absolute value of the result was computed and served as the dependent variable. The transformed epochs were averaged for each condition (see Csibra, Davis, Spratling, & Johnson, 2000;Hoehl, Michel, et al, 2014;Parise & Csibra, 2013). Furthermore, 1000 ms at the beginning and at the end of each segment were removed to avoid distortions due to the transformation.…”