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Exploring emotional face processing in 5-month-olds: The relation with quality of parent-child interaction and

Carlijn van den Boomen1, Nicolette M Munsters1,2,3, Maja Deković4

  • 1Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Infancy : the Official Journal of the International Society on Infant Studies
|July 8, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Five-month-old infants

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Infant Studies

Background:

  • Infant emotional face processing is crucial for social development.
  • Previous research presents conflicting findings on early emotional face perception.
  • Factors influencing infant brain responses to emotional faces require further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine if 5-month-old infants exhibit differential brain activity to emotional faces.
  • To explore the influence of spatial frequency content on emotional face processing.
  • To examine the relationship between parent-child interaction quality and emotional face processing.

Main Methods:

  • Electroencephalography (EEG) measured face-sensitive components (N290, P400, Nc).
  • Infants viewed neutral and fearful faces with varying spatial frequencies.
  • Parent-child interaction quality was assessed using the Manchester Assessment of Caregiver Infant Interaction (MACI).

Main Results:

  • No significant differences in brain activity between emotional expressions were found in the overall group.
  • Infants with high-quality parent-child interactions showed differential processing of emotional faces.
  • Infants with low-quality interactions did not exhibit differential emotional face processing.

Conclusions:

  • Differential emotional face processing emerges in a subset of 5-month-old infants.
  • High-quality parent-child interactions are associated with enhanced emotional face perception in infancy.
  • Interaction quality may play a significant role in the development of infant emotional processing.

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