Unconscious discrimination of social cues from eye whites in infants

Jessen, Sarah; Großmann, Tobias

doi:10.1073/pnas.1411333111

Cited by 97 publications

(49 citation statements)

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“…Therefore, selective enhanced attention to fearful eyes as seen in our infant data may reflect infants' approach and empathic concern for others in distress (experiencing fear) (73). Alternatively, infants may also look longer at fearful eyes because they expect gaze cues that help them identify the source of threat (74) or because they exhibit a heightened perceptual sensitivity to the large eye whites characteristic of fearful eyes (9). Regardless of the exact nature of this effect, the current findings provide evidence for the notion that infants of this age show a robust fear bias.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…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)(6)(7)(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 cues alone (9). Similar to adults, 7-mo-old infants discriminated between emotional eyes without consciously perceiving them (see ref.…”

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confidence: 99%

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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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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

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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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“…Corroborating analysis using a cluster-based permutation approach. While the electrode and time window selection for this analysis had not been data derived but followed standards set by previous studies (Jessen & Grossmann, 2014, we aimed to corroborate this main result by a more data-driven search for potential effects using a cluster-based permutation test (Figure 3). In both, the No odor group and the Stranger odor group, nearly identical clusters indicating a significantly response enhancement to fearful (compared to happy) faces was found (No odor: p = .006, Tsum = 3063.8; Stranger odor: p = .021, Tsum = 1272.8).…”

Section: Influence Of Maternal Odor On the Nc Response As Predictedmentioning

confidence: 97%

Maternal Odor Reduces the Neural Response to Fearful Faces in Human Infants

Jessen

2019

Preprint

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Maternal odor is known to play an important role in mother-infant-interaction in 1 many altricial species such as rodents. However, we only know very little about 2 its role in early human development. The present study therefore investigated the 3 impact of maternal odor on infant brain responses to threat signals. We recorded 4 the electroencephalographic (EEG) signal of seven-month-old infants watching 5 happy and fearful facial expressions. While infants in two control groups showed 6 the expected EEG fear response, this response was markedly absent in the group 7 exposed to their mother's odor. Thus, infants respond differently to fear signals in 8 the presence of their mother and the mother's odor is a sufficiently strong signal 9 to elicit this effect. Our data suggest that olfaction, a sensory modality that has 10 been largely neglected as a social signal in our own species, might function as a 11 crucial modulator in early social learning. 12

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“…These effects are observed even when the level of awareness or attention is restricted (Mogg and Bradley, 1999; Ohman et al , 2001). In order to investigate this automaticity, numerous laboratories have used the backward masking paradigm (Morris et al , 1998; Whalen et al , 1998; Etkin et al , 2004; Armony et al , 2005; Pessoa et al , 2006; Williams et al , 2006; Ohman et al , 2007; Jessen and Grossman, 2014; Kanat et al , 2015). In a typical backward masking experiment using emotional facial expressions, a target stimulus (e.g., a fearful face) is presented briefly, then immediately replaced by a mask stimulus (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A face versus non-face context influences amygdala responses to masked fearful eye whites

Kim¹,

Solomon²,

Neta³

et al. 2016

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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The structure of the mask stimulus is crucial in backward masking studies and we recently demonstrated such an effect when masking faces. Specifically, we showed that activity of the amygdala is increased to fearful facial expressions masked with neutral faces and decreased to fearful expressions masked with a pattern mask—but critically both masked conditions discriminated fearful expressions from happy expressions. Given this finding, we sought to test whether masked fearful eye whites would produce a similar profile of amygdala response in a face vs non-face context. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning sessions, 30 participants viewed fearful or happy eye whites masked with either neutral faces or pattern images. Results indicated amygdala activity was increased to fearful vs happy eye whites in the face mask condition, but decreased to fearful vs happy eye whites in the pattern mask condition—effectively replicating and expanding our previous report. Our data support the idea that the amygdala is responsive to fearful eye whites, but that the nature of this activity observed in a backward masking design depends on the mask stimulus.

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Unconscious discrimination of social cues from eye whites in infants

Cited by 97 publications

References 76 publications

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

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

Maternal Odor Reduces the Neural Response to Fearful Faces in Human Infants

A face versus non-face context influences amygdala responses to masked fearful eye whites

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