Links between infant temperament and neurophysiological measures of attention to happy and fearful faces

Martinos, Marina; Matheson, A. L.; Haan, Michelle de

doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02599.x

Cited by 30 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Although we expected IBQ-R subscales representing negative emotionality to be related to infants' ERP responses to negative facial expressions, no associations between these measures were found. Our results are similar to the findings by Martinos and colleagues [57] showing that only infants' self-regulation abilities but not infants' negative emotionality per se was associated with infants' ERP responses to negative (fearful) emotional expressions. In line with our findings, Martinos and colleagues [57] showed that infants that were better at self-regulation showed a larger Nc response to fearful facial expressions.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…The IBQ-R consists of 14 subscales that cover a wide range of temperamental traits: approach, vocal reactivity, high intensity pleasure, smiling and laughter, activity level, perceptual sensitivity, sadness, distress to limitations, fear, falling reactivity/rate of recovery from distress, low intensity pleasure, cuddliness, duration of orienting, soothability [72]. In accordance with previous studies that investigated the influence of temperament on infants perception of emotions and frontal EEG alpha asymmetry [57], [58], temperament analyses in the present study were limited to two dimensions of infant temperament, namely, ‘negative emotionality’ (as indexed by the subscales fear, sadness, distress to limitations, recovery from distress) and approach oriented temperament (as indexed by the subscales approach and duration of orienting).…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 62%

“…This approach was informed by previous studies (a) with adults: demonstrating that individuals that score higher in empathy, as measured by an empathy questionnaire, exhibit greater activation in their brain responses to pain [7], [14], and (b) with infants: demonstrating that differences in emotion regulation abilities, as measured by a parental questionnaire (IBQ-R), were associated with differences in the brain responses to negative facial expressions [57]. The temperament of the infants, in particular approach- and withdrawal-related traits as measured by a parental questionnaire (IBQ-R), was found to be related to general differences in frontal EEG alpha asymmetry patterns in 7- to 9-month-old infants [58].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Developmental and Individual Differences in the Neural Processing of Dynamic Expressions of Pain and Anger

2014

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We examined the processing of facial expressions of pain and anger in 8-month-old infants and adults by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and frontal EEG alpha asymmetry. The ERP results revealed that while adults showed a late positive potential (LPP) to emotional expressions that was enhanced to pain expressions, reflecting increased evaluation and emotional arousal to pain expressions, infants showed a negative component (Nc) to emotional expressions that was enhanced to angry expressions, reflecting increased allocation of attention to angry faces. Moreover, infants and adults showed opposite patterns in their frontal asymmetry responses to pain and anger, suggesting developmental differences in the motivational processes engendered by these facial expressions. These findings are discussed in the light of associated individual differences in infant temperament and adult dispositional empathy.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 62%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Developmental and Individual Differences in the Neural Processing of Dynamic Expressions of Pain and Anger

2014

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“…The Nc is thought to reflect the orienting of processing resources to attention-grabbing stimuli (de Haan & Matheson, 2009). Thus, the appearance of the Nc is thought to reflect automatic attention processes, while the modulation of Nc amplitude reflects more controlled application of sustained attention (Martinos et al, 2012). The orienting and modulation marked by the Nc is subserved by the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which is in turn thought to regulate limbic activity (de Haan, Johnson, & Halit, 2003; Peltola, Leppanen, Maki, et al, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of negative affect on attention patterns to threat across the first 2 years of life.

Pérez‐Edgar

Morales

LoBue

et al. 2017

Developmental Psychology

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The current study examined the relations between individual differences in attention to emotion faces and temperamental negative affect across the first two years of life. Infant studies have noted a normative pattern of preferential attention to salient cues, particularly angry faces. A parallel literature suggests that elevated attention bias to threat is associated with anxiety, particularly if coupled with temperamental risk. Examining the emerging relations between attention to threat and temperamental negative affect may help distinguish normative from at-risk patterns of attention. Infants (N=145) ages 4 to 24 months (Mean=12.93 months, SD=5.57) completed an eye-tracking task modeled on the attention bias “dot-probe” task used with older children and adults. With age, infants spent greater time attending to emotion faces, particularly threat faces. All infants displayed slower latencies to fixate to incongruent versus congruent probes. Neither relation was moderated by temperament. Trial-by-trial analyses found that dwell time to the face was associated with latency to orient to subsequent probes, moderated by the infant's age and temperament. In young infants low in negative affect longer processing of angry faces was associated with faster subsequent fixation to probes; young infants high in negative affect displayed the opposite pattern at trend. Findings suggest that although age was directly associated with an emerging bias to threat, the impact of processing threat on subsequent orienting was associated with age and temperament. Early patterns of attention may shape how children respond to their environments, potentially via attention's gate-keeping role in framing a child's social world for processing.

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“…Of note, infants' neural sensitivity to emotional expressions is robustly associated with individual differences in temperamental traits (Martinos, Matheson, & de Haan, ; Ravicz, Perdue, Westerlund, Vanderwert, & Nelson, ; Taylor‐Colls & Fearon, ). For example, de Haan and colleagues () reported that being higher on fearfulness on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ‐R; Gartstein & Rothbart, ) at 7 months is related to a larger Nc to static fearful faces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion in motion: Facial dynamics affect infants' neural processing of emotions

Quadrelli

Conte

Cassia

et al. 2019

Developmental Psychobiology

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Research investigating the early development of emotional processing has focused mainly on infants' perception of static facial emotional expressions, likely restricting the amount and type of information available to infants. In particular, the question of whether dynamic information in emotional facial expressions modulates infants' neural responses has been rarely investigated. The present study aimed to fill this gap by recording 7‐month‐olds' event‐related potentials to static (Study 1) and dynamic (Study 2) happy, angry, and neutral faces. In Study 1, happy faces evoked a faster right‐lateralized negative central (Nc) component compared to angry faces. In Study 2, both happy and angry faces elicited a larger right‐lateralized Nc compared to neutral faces. Irrespective of stimulus dynamicity, a larger P400 to angry faces was associated with higher scores on the Negative Affect temperamental dimension. Overall, results suggest that 7‐month‐olds are sensitive to facial dynamics, which might play a role in shaping the neural processing of facial emotional expressions. Results also suggest that the amount of attentional resources infants allocate to angry expressions is associated to their temperamental traits. These findings represent a promising avenue for future studies exploring the neurobiological processes involved in perceiving emotional expressions using dynamic stimuli.

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Links between infant temperament and neurophysiological measures of attention to happy and fearful faces

Cited by 30 publications

References 44 publications

Developmental and Individual Differences in the Neural Processing of Dynamic Expressions of Pain and Anger

Developmental and Individual Differences in the Neural Processing of Dynamic Expressions of Pain and Anger

The impact of negative affect on attention patterns to threat across the first 2 years of life.

Emotion in motion: Facial dynamics affect infants' neural processing of emotions

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