Mothers’ pupillary responses to infant facial expressions

Abstract

BackgroundHuman parental care relies heavily on the ability to monitor and respond to a child’s affective states. The current study examined pupil diameter as a potential physiological index of mothers’ affective response to infant facial expressions.MethodsPupillary time-series were measured from 86 mothers of young infants in response to an array of photographic infant faces falling into four emotive categories based on valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (mild vs. strong).ResultsPupil dilation was highly sensitive to the valence of facial expressions, being larger for negative vs. positive facial expressions. A separate control experiment with luminance-matched non-face stimuli indicated that the valence effect was specific to facial expressions and cannot be explained by luminance confounds. Pupil response was not sensitive to the arousal level of facial expressions.ConclusionsThe results show the feasibility of using pupil diameter as a marker of mothers’ affective responses to ecologically valid infant stimuli and point to a particularly prompt maternal response to infant distress cues.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12993-017-0120-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Cortical modulation of pupillary function: systematic review

“…For instance, pupillary dilatation reflects preference for political candidates (Barlow, 1969), alcoholic beverages (Beall, 1977) and visual arts (e.g., Rembrandt’s paintings) (Elschner, Hübner & Dambacher, 2017; Hayes, Muday & Schirillo, 2013; Kuchinke et al., 2009; Powell & Schirillo, 2011; Schirillo, 2014; Alvarez et al., 2015) allowing to predict people’s tastes. Images of human faces elicit a pupillary reaction as well: Angry or fearful facial expressions and images of females increase pupil sizes, in contrast to happy faces and males’ images (Allard, Wadlinger & Isaacowitz, 2010; Blackburn & Schirillo, 2012; Bradley et al., 2008; Chiesa et al., 2015; Goldinger, He & Papesh, 2009; Kret et al., 2013; Lichtenstein-Vidne et al., 2017; Porter, Hood & Troscianko, 2006; Schrammel et al., 2009; Vanderhasselt et al., 2018; Wu, Laeng & Magnussen, 2012; Yrttiaho et al., 2017; Kret, 2017; Hammerschmidt et al., 2018). Negative images showing violence, distress and threat but also positive ones depicting happiness elicited a dilatation as opposed to neutral everyday images (Henderson, Bradley & Lang, 2014; Bradley, Sapigao & Lang, 2017; Henderson, Bradley & Lang, 2017; Iijima et al., 2014; Chiew & Braver, 2014; Pearlstein et al., 2018; Thoma & Baum, 2018).…”

Subjective ratings and emotional recognition of children’s facial expressions from the CAFE set

“…For example, a study with young children (3–5 years old) showed that the previously described attentional bias for angry faces is stronger when pictures of child (vs. adults) models are used [24]. Another important line of research did not focus on children’s responses, but rather on the behavioral [25,26] or psychophysiological responses of adults in general, or parents [27–29], to children’s emotional expressions. For example, Aradhye et al [4] used photographs of children to examine how different expressions influence the responsiveness of non-kin young adults and found that smiling children were rated as more likely to be adopted than crying children.…”

Peer Review #2 of "Cortical modulation of pupillary function: systematic review (v0.1)"

“…Rembrandt's paintings) [121][122][123][124][125][126] allowing to predict people's tastes. Images of human faces elicit a pupillary reaction as well: Angry or fearful facial expressions and images of females increase pupil sizes, in contrast to happy faces and males' images [127][128][129][130][131][132][133][134][135][136][137][138][139][140] . Negative images showing violence, distress and threat but also positive ones depicting happiness elicited a dilatation as opposed to neutral everyday images 141 142-147 .…”