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Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
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Infants' interoception is associated with eye contact in dyadic social interactions

Masahiro Imafuku1, Hiromasa Yoshimoto2, Kazuo Hiraki2

  • 1Department of Early Childhood Education and Care, Faculty of Education, Musashino University, 1-1-20 Shin-Machi, Nishitokyo-Shi, Tokyo, 202-8585, Japan. masahiro.imafuku@gmail.com.

Scientific Reports
|June 19, 2023
PubMed

Insights

Infants

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.

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