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Parental neural responsivity to infants' visual attention: How mature brains influence immature brains during social interaction.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Noreika, Valdas 
Georgieva, Stanimira 
Clackson, Kaili 
Brightman, Laura 

Abstract

Almost all attention and learning-in particular, most early learning-take place in social settings. But little is known of how our brains support dynamic social interactions. We recorded dual electroencephalography (EEG) from 12-month-old infants and parents during solo play and joint play. During solo play, fluctuations in infants' theta power significantly forward-predicted their subsequent attentional behaviours. However, this forward-predictiveness was lower during joint play than solo play, suggesting that infants' endogenous neural control over attention is greater during solo play. Overall, however, infants were more attentive to the objects during joint play. To understand why, we examined how adult brain activity related to infant attention. We found that parents' theta power closely tracked and responded to changes in their infants' attention. Further, instances in which parents showed greater neural responsivity were associated with longer sustained attention by infants. Our results offer new insights into how one partner influences another during social interaction.

Description

Keywords

Adult, Attention, Brain, Comprehension, Electroencephalography, Family, Female, Humans, Infant, Interpersonal Relations, Learning, Male, Mothers, Parents

Journal Title

PLoS Biol

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1544-9173
1545-7885

Volume Title

16

Publisher

Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Sponsorship
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/N006461/1)
The research was funded by ESRC Grant numbers ES/N006461/1 to VL and SW, ES/N017560/1 to SW