Mothers’ neural responses to infant faces are associated with activation of the maternal care system and observed intrusiveness with their own child

Abstract

Certain infant facial characteristics, referred to as baby schema, are thought to automatically trigger parenting behavior and affective orientation toward infants. Electroencephalography (EEG) is well suited to assessing the intuitive nature and temporal dynamics of parenting responses, due to its millisecond temporal resolution. Little is known, however, about the relations between neural processing of infant cues and actual parenting behavior in a naturalistic setting. In the present study we examined the event-related potentials (ERPs) of mothers (N = 33) watching infant faces of varying attractiveness, in relation to activation of the maternal care system and the mothers’ observed parenting behavior (sensitivity, nonintrusiveness) with their own child (2–6 years old). The results revealed that, irrespective of the cuteness of the infant face, mothers’ neural processing of infant faces involved both early P1 and P2 components (related to orienting/detecting processes) and late positive potentials (LPPs; related to more controlled cognitive evaluation/attentional engagement). Increased early detection and processing of infant faces (reflected by P1 and P2 activity) was related to increased activation of the parental care system. In later stages of face processing, increased attentional engagement with infant faces (as reflected by LPP activity) was associated with more intrusiveness of a mother with her own child during interaction. These findings suggest that individual variations in responses to infant stimuli are associated with individual differences in parental care system activation and parenting quality. Furthermore, the parental care system might be activated relatively automatically, but actual parenting and caregiving behavior requires more conscious control.

Oxytocin reduces neural activation in response to infant faces in nulliparous young women

“…To assess neural responses to infant stimuli we created a task based on Glocker et al ( 2009b ) in which the participants were presented with infant faces of varying levels of cuteness. The stimuli have been used in previous EEG research (Endendijk et al , 2018 ) and consisted of nine different pictures of an infant faces (which comprised the normal condition), which were manipulated to create additional low-cuteness and high-cuteness condition of the same face yielding three conditions with a total of 27 stimuli (Borgi et al , 2014 ). Detailed information on the stimuli can be found in the supplementary online material .…”

Exposure to infant images enhances attention control in mothers

“…First, we did not relate individual cuteness ratings of the infant images to mothers' task performance and happy facial expressions. However, previous study findings suggest that responses to images of infant faces are independent of perceived cuteness ratings (Endendijk, Spencer, van Baar, & Bos, 2018;Hildebrandt & Fitzgerald, 1978). Second, the visual search task we used was an adapted version of the task used in prior research (Nittono et al, 2012).…”

“It’s so Cute I Could Crush It!”: Understanding Neural Mechanisms of Cute Aggression

“…Our participant’s observation aligns with previous research related to brain activities of mothers in response to children’s faces and voices. Previous research in mothers suggest that ERP responses have been associated with parental behavior for interpreting infants’ distress cries (Rutherford et al, 2017) and mental states (Endendijk et al, 2018). In addition, when mothers were given intranasal oxytocin, a hormone involved with social and parental bonding, more robust brain activity was observed for facial expressions (Peltola et al, 2018).…”