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Updated: Aug 6, 2025
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A Within-subjects Experimental Protocol to Assess the Effects of Social Input on Infant EEG
Published on: May 3, 2017
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Infant negative affectivity and patterns of affect-biased attention.
Danielle A Swales1,2, Julie Markant3, Ella-Marie P Hennessey1
1Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado.
Developmental Psychobiology
|March 22, 2023
Summary
Infant negative affectivity is linked to attention biases, specifically looking longer at happy faces and less at angry ones. This attention pattern emerges in how infants hold their gaze, not initial orienting, impacting socioemotional development.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Clinical Psychology
Background:
- Biased attention to emotional cues is linked to internalizing disorders.
- Early indicators of psychopathological risk, like negative affectivity, need further investigation regarding attention biases in infancy.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine the relationship between negative affectivity and affect-biased attention in 6-month-old infants.
- To determine if negative affectivity influences attention orienting and attention holding toward emotional faces.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a free-viewing eye-tracking task with infants presented with pairs of faces (happy, angry, sad, neutral).
- Quantified attention using metrics for attention orienting (speed) and attention holding (duration).
- Assessed negative affectivity through parent reports.
Main Results:
- Infants did not show differences in attention orienting or holding toward emotional versus neutral faces.
- Negative affectivity was not related to attention orienting.
- Negative affectivity correlated with biased attention holding: longer duration toward happy faces and shorter duration toward angry faces compared to neutral faces.
Conclusions:
- Negative affectivity in infancy is associated with specific attention holding biases, not initial attention orienting, towards emotional stimuli.
- These attention biases may play a crucial role in the developmental trajectory of socioemotional well-being and internalizing disorders.
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