Infants' interoception is associated with eye contact in dyadic social interactions

Area of Science:

• Developmental psychology
• Neuroscience
• Infant behavior

Background:

• Interoception, the perception of internal bodily signals, is crucial for socio-emotional development.
• The link between interoception and social behavior in infants remains understudied.
• Understanding this connection is vital for early social cognitive development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between interoception and social behavior in 6-month-old infants and their mothers.
• To explore how interoceptive processing influences infant-mother interactions.
• To identify potential mediating factors in the development of infant social behaviors.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a preferential-looking paradigm to assess infant visual preference for cardio-visual synchronous and asynchronous stimuli.
• Measured infant-mother interaction, focusing on social behaviors like eye contact and positive facial expressions.
• Employed mediation analyses to understand the pathways between interoception and social behaviors.

Main Results:

• Infants showed a preference for asynchronous cardio-visual stimuli, while mothers preferred synchronous stimuli.
• Infants' attention to asynchronous stimuli correlated positively with infant-mother gaze and affect synchrony.
• Mothers' positive facial expressions mediated the relationship between infant interoception and eye contact.

Conclusions:

• Infant interoception may influence eye contact during mother-infant interactions, primarily through the mother's positive affect.
• This study highlights the foundational role of interoception in early social cognitive development.
• Findings underscore the importance of maternal emotional expression in facilitating infant social engagement.