Parental neural responsivity to infants' visual attention: How mature brains influence immature brains during social interaction

Almost all attention and learning-in particular, most early learning-take place in social settings. But little is known of how our brains support dynamic social interactions. We recorded dual electroencephalography (EEG) from 12-month-old infants and parents during solo play and joint play. During s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS biology 2018-12, Vol.16 (12), p.e2006328-e2006328
Main Authors: Wass, Sam V, Noreika, Valdas, Georgieva, Stanimira, Clackson, Kaili, Brightman, Laura, Nutbrown, Rebecca, Covarrubias, Lorena Santamaria, Leong, Vicky
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adults
Attention
Attention - physiology
Babies
Behavior
Biology and Life Sciences
Brain
Brain - growth & development
Brain - physiology
Brain research
Comprehension
Decomposition
Developmental psychology
EEG
Electroencephalography
Electroencephalography - methods
Family
Female
Humans
Infant
Infants
Influence
Interpersonal Relations
Investigations
Learning
Learning - physiology
Male
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mothers
Neural circuitry
Neurophysiology
Neurosciences
Parent and child
Parents
People and Places
Physical Sciences
Physiological aspects
Psychological aspects
Research and Analysis Methods
Social discrimination learning
Social factors
Social interaction
Social interactions
Social Sciences
Time series
Variations
Visual cortex
Visual perception
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Summary:Almost all attention and learning-in particular, most early learning-take place in social settings. But little is known of how our brains support dynamic social interactions. We recorded dual electroencephalography (EEG) from 12-month-old infants and parents during solo play and joint play. During solo play, fluctuations in infants' theta power significantly forward-predicted their subsequent attentional behaviours. However, this forward-predictiveness was lower during joint play than solo play, suggesting that infants' endogenous neural control over attention is greater during solo play. Overall, however, infants were more attentive to the objects during joint play. To understand why, we examined how adult brain activity related to infant attention. We found that parents' theta power closely tracked and responded to changes in their infants' attention. Further, instances in which parents showed greater neural responsivity were associated with longer sustained attention by infants. Our results offer new insights into how one partner influences another during social interaction.
ISSN:1545-7885
1544-9173
1545-7885
DOI:10.1371/journal.pbio.2006328