Emergence of enhanced attention to fearful faces between 5 and 7 months of age

Peltola, Mikko J.; Leppänen, Jukka; Mäki, Silja; Hietanen, Jari K.

doi:10.1093/scan/nsn046

Cited by 194 publications

(298 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…This is in line with work that has implicated the Nc in differential attention allocation in response to supraliminally presented emotion and gaze stimuli (41,(54)(55)(56)(57). It suggests that the brain processes associated with the Nc function regardless of whether or not emotional (fear) or gaze information is consciously perceived.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…However, it is not until the age of 7 mo that they show a robust attentional bias to fear, as reflected in their neural and behavioral responses (37)(38)(39)(40)(41). The developmental emergence of this fear bias has been linked to the maturation of frontolimbic circuits (42)(43)(44)(45) and occurs at a point in development when infants begin to first experience fear themselves (46,47).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

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Unconscious discrimination of social cues from eye whites in infants

Jessen

Großmann

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Human eyes serve two key functions in face-to-face social interactions: they provide cues about a person's emotional state and attentional focus (gaze direction). Both functions critically rely on the morphologically unique human sclera and have been shown to operate even in the absence of conscious awareness in adults. However, it is not known whether the ability to respond to social cues from scleral information without conscious awareness exists early in human ontogeny and can therefore be considered a foundational feature of human social functioning. In the current study, we used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to show that 7-mo-old infants discriminate between fearful and nonfearful eyes (experiment 1) and between direct and averted gaze (experiment 2), even when presented below the perceptual threshold. These effects were specific to the human sclera and not seen in response to polarityinverted eyes. Our results suggest that early in ontogeny the human brain detects social cues from scleral information even in the absence of conscious awareness. The current findings support the view that the human eye with its prominent sclera serves critical communicative functions during human social interactions.infancy | social perception | human eye | subliminal processing | emotion processing

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Unconscious discrimination of social cues from eye whites in infants

Jessen

Großmann

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Finally, the absence of an attentional bias for fearful faces in 5-month-old infants (Peltola, Leppänen, Mäki et al, 2009), for whom fearful faces are undoubtedly as novel as for 7-month-olds, also argues against a novelty-based account.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhanced cardiac and attentional responding to fearful faces in 7‐month‐old infants

2011

Self Cite

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Orienting of attention to emotionally negative stimuli is accompanied by rapid heart rate (HR) deceleration, reflecting enhanced attentional and sensory processing. We studied whether similar emotional modulation of cardiac responding is observed in infants. HR and eye movements were recorded from 7-month-old infants while they observed a fearful or happy face that was flanked after 700 ms by a peripheral distractor for 2000 ms. An attentional bias for fearful faces was indicated by less frequent and longer-latency saccades toward the distractors during fearful than happy trials. HR deceleration was significantly larger during fearful than happy trials on which infants did not make a distractor-directed saccade. For trials with a distractor-directed saccade, no difference between fearful and happy faces emerged.

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“…Based on prior work on emotional face perception in infancy, we hypothesized that 7-mo-old infants are able to discriminate between emotions (1). More specifically, we predicted that infants would show increased attention to fear compared with other emotions (3,(62)(63)(64)(65). We further hypothesized that duration of EBF is associated with differences in infants' attention to emotional information.…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 97%

“…1 and 2 for reviews). For example, by around 7 mo of age, infants distinguish between fearful and happy facial expressions and show increased allocation of attention to fear (3). This enhanced attention to fear in others marks the emergence of a "fear bias" in infancy, which is thought to orient and alert the infant to potentially threatening situations (2,4).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic variation in CD38 and breastfeeding experience interact to impact infants’ attention to social eye cues

Krol

Monakhov

Lai

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Attending to emotional information conveyed by the eyes is an important social skill in humans. The current study examined this skill in early development by measuring attention to eyes while viewing emotional faces in 7-mo-old infants. In particular, we investigated individual differences in infant attention to eyes in the context of genetic variation (CD38 rs3796863 polymorphism) and experiential variation (exclusive breastfeeding duration) related to the oxytocin system. Our results revealed that, whereas infants at this age show a robust fear bias (increased attention to fearful eyes), their attention to angry and happy eyes varies as a function of exclusive breastfeeding experience and genetic variation in CD38. Specifically, extended exclusive breastfeeding duration selectively enhanced looking preference to happy eyes and decreased looking to angry eyes. Importantly, however, this interaction was impacted by CD38 variation, such that only the looking preferences of infants homozygous for the C allele of rs3796863 were affected by breastfeeding experience. This genotype has been associated with reduced release of oxytocin and higher rates of autism. In contrast, infants with the CA/AA genotype showed similar looking preferences regardless of breastfeeding exposure. Thus, differences in the sensitivity to emotional eyes may be linked to an interaction between the endogenous (CD38) and exogenous (breastfeeding) availability of oxytocin. These findings underline the importance of maternal care and the oxytocin system in contributing to the early development of responding to social eye cues.CD38 | oxytocin | breastfeeding | emotion perception | infancy S ensitive responding to emotions in others is a vital social skill that helps us relate to others, predict their actions, and coordinate our own behavior during social interactions. Given its critical importance for effective social functioning, it is not surprising that the ability to detect and distinguish between emotional expressions emerges early in human development. Findings from behavioral and neuroscience studies indicate that infants' ability to discriminate between positive and negative emotional expressions emerges in the first year of life (see refs. 1 and 2 for reviews). For example, by around 7 mo of age, infants distinguish between fearful and happy facial expressions and show increased allocation of attention to fear (3). This enhanced attention to fear in others marks the emergence of a "fear bias" in infancy, which is thought to orient and alert the infant to potentially threatening situations (2, 4). Prior work with adults demonstrates that emotion perception and, in particular, fear detection (eyes wide open) rely heavily on information from the eye region and occur even in the absence of conscious perception (5-8).The importance of eye cues for emotion perception has recently been studied in infants. In an event-related brain potential (ERP) study, 7-mo-old infants were found to discriminate between fear and happiness on the basis of eye c...

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Emergence of enhanced attention to fearful faces between 5 and 7 months of age

Cited by 194 publications

References 50 publications

Unconscious discrimination of social cues from eye whites in infants

Unconscious discrimination of social cues from eye whites in infants

Enhanced cardiac and attentional responding to fearful faces in 7‐month‐old infants

Genetic variation in CD38 and breastfeeding experience interact to impact infants’ attention to social eye cues

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