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Examining a Common Method of Measuring Infant Fear: Considering Temperament, Neurophysiology, Age, and Sex
Joshua J Underwood1, Marco A Ramirez Gonzalez2, Kallie L Distler1
1Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA.
Insights
Infants showed more distress to later masks in a fear study, but their brain activity (EEG) did not change. Age and sex influenced fear responses and brain activity predictability.
Area of Science:
- Developmental psychology
- Neuroscience
- Child behavior
Background:
- The Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB) is a key tool for observing infant fear responses to novel stimuli.
- Previous research linked Lab-TAB fear indicators to maternal reports and frontal electroencephalography (EEG) reactivity.
- However, differences in infant reactions to individual fear-provoking stimuli within the Lab-TAB have not been thoroughly investigated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate infant behavioral and neurophysiological responses to each of the four novel masks presented in the Lab-TAB.
- To explore how factors like age and sex influence fear expression and neurophysiological reactivity.
- To understand if infants habituate to repeated fear-provoking stimuli during the task.
Main Methods:
- Behavioral coding of infant distress and regulation in response to each of the four Lab-TAB masks.
- Measurement of frontal alpha asymmetry using electroencephalography (EEG) across mask presentations.
- Analysis of temperament data (Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised) in relation to behavioral and neurophysiological outcomes.
- Subgroup analyses based on infant age and sex.
Main Results:
- Infants exhibited significantly greater behavioral distress and regulation difficulties with the fourth mask compared to earlier masks.
- No significant differences in neurophysiological responses (frontal alpha asymmetry) were observed across the four masks.
- Temperament measures (fear subscale, negative emotionality) did not predict neurophysiological changes or behavioral responses overall, but did in age/sex subgroups.
- Older infants showed differing neurophysiological reactions across the paradigm, unlike younger infants.
Conclusions:
- Behavioral fear responses in infants increase with repeated exposure to similar stimuli, but neurophysiological responses remain stable.
- Infants may habituate to fear-eliciting stimuli over time, reducing the predictive utility of later neurophysiological markers.
- Age and sex are critical moderators of infant fear expression and the relationship between temperament and neurophysiological responses.
- Discrepancies between behavioral and neurophysiological findings highlight the complexity of fear expression in infancy.
Abstract:
The pre-locomotor version of the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB) provides one of the most widely used observational measures of fear based on the infant's reactivity to a series of four novel masks. Resulting indicators of facial and bodily fear intensity, as well as latency to exhibit a fearful response, have been associated with maternal reports of infant fear as well as frontal electroencephalography (EEG) reactivity. While these measures have been used extensively since the introduction of Lab-TAB, they are typically averaged across the procedure, and differences between the four mask stimuli have not been sufficiently examined. This study addressed this gap in research by examining specific infant reactions, both behaviorally and from a neurophysiological standpoint, to each presentation of the fear-provoking stimuli to better understand factors that impact the expression of fear during this task. Our findings indicated significant differences in behavioral observations of distress and regulation, with the final/fourth mask eliciting stronger reactions; however, there were no such differences in the infants' neurophysiological response. Additionally, neither the fear subscale of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R) nor the Negative Emotionality factor was predictive of infant's neurophysiological changes, distress, or regulation during the episode until examining subgroups based on age or sex. Further analyses of frontal alpha asymmetry across masks indicated that infants may become attuned to these stimuli over the course of the task, leading to less predictive utility than earlier neurophysiological markers. Results also revealed that older infants had differing neurophysiological reactions across the paradigm, whereas no significant differences were noted for younger infants. Finally, differences based on infant sex emerged with regard to temperament predictors of asymmetry. Implications of the discrepancy between results for the EEG asymmetry markers and observed distress/regulation in trial comparisons are discussed.
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