Infants’ Selective Visual Attention Is Dependent on Maternal Affect and Emotional Context

Poor maternal mental health negatively impacts cognitive development from infancy to childhood, affecting both behavior and brain architecture. In a non-western context (Thimphu, Bhutan), we demonstrate that culturally-moderated factors such as family, community social support, and enrichment may buffer and scaffold the development of infant cognition when maternal mental health is poor. We used eye-tracking to measure early building blocks of cognition: attention regulation and social perception, in 9-month-old Bhutanese infants (N = 121). The cognitive development of Bhutanese infants in richer social environments was buffered from poor maternal mental health, while for infants in environments with lower rates of protective social environment factors, worse maternal mental health significantly predicted greater costs for infant attention, a fundamental building block cognition. International policies and interventions geared to improve maternal mental health and child health outcomes should incorporate each regions' unique family, cultural, and community support structures.

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“…The visual search task was adapted for infants based on procedures from Juvrud et al. (2021) and Haas et al. (2016).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

High quality social environment buffers infants’ cognitive development from poor maternal mental health: Evidence from a study in Bhutan

Juvrud

Haas

Lindskog

et al. 2021

Developmental Science

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“…The participants wear noise-canceling headphones while completing a larger battery of experimental tasks. The tasks assessed IQ [27], visual attention [28,29], emotional processing [30], working memory [31], and risk-taking [32] with written instructions in Arabic. The task was identical for all ages and all participants had the same amount of time to complete the task.…”

Section: Procedures and Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of maternal trauma and discipline types in emotional processing among Syrian refugee children

Peltonen

Gredebäck

Pollak

et al. 2022

Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry

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Stressful experiences in armed conflict incur intergenerational effects through parental behaviors with their children. A recent study reported that among Syrian refugee families, mothers’ (but not fathers’) post-traumatic stress (PTS) impacted children’s emotional processing. In this study, we aim to shed further light on this phenomenon by analyzing how the parenting practices in the context of post-traumatic stress confers protection or risk for children’s emotional processing. Participants were 6–18-year-old children (n = 212) and their mothers (n = 94), who fled from Syria and were residing in Turkish communities. We used the computer-based emotional processing task including photos of facial movements typically associated with different emotions to measure children’s capacity for emotional processing. Mothers reported their PTS and the discipline types they use, as well as the contextual factors related to their refugee background. Linear mixed effect models were constructed first, to find out the discipline types that are most strongly associated with emotional processing of the child, and second, to examine whether these discipline types moderate the effect of maternal PTS on children's emotional processing. Finally, generalized linear models were constructed to examine which contextual factors are associated with the use of these discipline types by mothers. We found that spanking as a discipline type was associated with poorer child emotional processing, whereas withholding of media access was associated with better emotional processing. Younger and less religious mothers were more prone to use spanking. The study underlines the need for parenting programs alongside with efforts to address mental health issues among mothers living under armed conflict.

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“…In turn, mutual gaze has been associated with visual attention in the first postnatal year of life 38 . The impact of maternal distress on mother-infant interactions 39 and maternal sensitivity 40 have been related to infants’ selective attention 41 and gaze-following ability 42 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Though it seems evident that a mother’s mental health, during both antenatal 23 , 33 , 34 , 43 – 46 and postpartum 23 , 37 , 38 , 41 , 45 , 46 , has a significant impact on offspring’s attention, the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. Previous evidence has shown that the complex and dynamic interactions between multiple biological, psychological and environmental factors contribute to both mothers’ mental health and children’s attention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal childhood trauma and perinatal distress are related to infants’ focused attention from 6 to 18 months

Skalkidou

Lindskog

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Maternal distress is repeatedly reported to have negative impacts on the cognitive development in children and is linked to neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder). However, studies examining the associations between maternal distress and the development of attention in infancy are few. This study investigated the longitudinal relationships between maternal distress (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and exposure to childhood trauma) and the development of focused attention in infancy in 118 mother-infant dyads. We found that maternal exposure to non-interpersonal traumatic events in childhood was associated with the less focused attention of the infants to audio-visual stimuli at 6, 10, and 18 months. In addition, exposure to interpersonal traumatic events in childhood was identified as a moderator of the negative effect of maternal anxiety during the 2nd trimester on the development of focused attention in infants. We discuss the possible mechanisms accounting for these cross-generational effects. Our findings underscore the importance of maternal mental health to the development of focused attention in infancy and address the need for early screening of maternal mental health during pregnancy.

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Infants’ Selective Visual Attention Is Dependent on Maternal Affect and Emotional Context

Cited by 7 publications

References 99 publications

High quality social environment buffers infants’ cognitive development from poor maternal mental health: Evidence from a study in Bhutan

High quality social environment buffers infants’ cognitive development from poor maternal mental health: Evidence from a study in Bhutan

The role of maternal trauma and discipline types in emotional processing among Syrian refugee children

Maternal childhood trauma and perinatal distress are related to infants’ focused attention from 6 to 18 months

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