Abstract
The ability to engage attention with selected stimuli is essential for infants to explore the world and process information relating to their surroundings. There are two main populations with a higher risk to develop attentional and social deficits whose deficits may arise from difficulties in regulating attention to salient cues: (1) siblings of children diagnosed with Autism; and (2) infants who were born pre-term. This study investigated infants' (N = 97) attention-engagement and pupil-dilation (PD) at 9 months of age, using a gaze-contingent paradigm and a structured social interaction. Specifically, we explored attention to stimuli with simple salient features (e.g., clear defined shapes, colors, and motions) vs. more complex non-social cues (amorphous shapes, colors, and motions) and social interaction in typically developing infants (TD, N = 25) and among two groups of infants at-risk to develop social difficulties (pre-terms, N = 56; siblings of children with Autism, N = 16). Findings show that the two risk groups preferred stimuli with simple features (F = 11.306, p < 0.001), accompanied by increased PD (F = 6.6, p < 0.001). Specifically, pre-term infants showed increased PD toward simple vs. complex stimuli (p < 0.001), while siblings showed a pervasive hyper-arousal to both simple and complex stimuli. Infants in the TD group preferred complex stimuli with no change in PD. Finally, the preference for the simple stimulus mediated the relationship between increased risk for social difficulties and decreased engagement duration in face-to-face interaction with the experimenter. Results suggest that activation of the attention-salience network shapes social abilities at infancy. Further, hyper-reactivity to salient stimuli limits social interaction among infants born pre-term and siblings of children with ASD.
Highlights
The ability to engage attention with selected stimuli enables infants to explore the world and process information relating to their surroundings
Responding to exogenic stimuli is related to the phasic activity of the locus coeruleus norepinephrine (LC-NE) system [7]
We aimed to explore a hyper-arousal framework that would account for attentional differences among high-risk infants and controls by studying gaze durations and pupil dilation in response to non-social straightforward content
Summary
The ability to engage attention with selected stimuli enables infants to explore the world and process information relating to their surroundings. Attention engagement during the neonatal period is positively related to the infant’s arousal level [1,2,3]. High arousal consists of increased physiological activation and responsiveness. Pupil dilation (PD) is a well-documented method to evaluate arousal responses [8,9,10]. Increases in pupil diameter reflect arousal in response to salient stimuli [9, 15, 16], complex cognitive processes [e.g., understanding other’s emotions; [8] and unexpected sounds [10]]; and has been useful in evaluating reactivity in young infants [17]. Increases in pupil dilations are evident in response to novelty and violations of infants’ expectations [17]
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