Infant Perception Research Articles

In the eye and mind of the beholder: The effects of familiarisation on the perception of atypical infant facial configurations.

Perception of infant faces plays a crucial role in adult-infant caretaking behaviour, with adults being found to demonstrate a reliable attraction towards infant faces over other stimuli. When affected by a congenital facial malformation such as cleft lip and/or palate, however, adults' visual scanning patterns and subjective appraisal of these faces have been found to be adversely affected. Little past work has explored how an observer's prior experience with this specific malformation might play a role in the perception of cleft-affected infant faces. To this end, two groups of adult female participants were recruited and presented with 48 images of infant faces (24 typical, 24 cleft-affected) with one group subjected to novel, purpose-built familiarisation training, where participants were exposed to infant cleft lip/palate related visual and informational stimuli prior to testing (n = 43). Eye gaze patterns and subjective "cuteness" ratings from this group were compared with an age matched control group which received no training (n = 41). No between group differences were found for "cuteness" ratings or eye gaze patterns to the cleft-affected mouth area in isolation, however, a significant negative relationship was found between gaze duration to the mouth region of cleft-affected images and subjective "cuteness" ratings, for control participants only. Notably, this relationship was not observed for the familiarised participants, suggesting their modified prior experience attenuated the effect that visual processing had on subjective appraisal of cleft-affected faces, when these two factors were assessed in tandem. Our findings suggest it is possible to attenuate the typically observed aversive behaviour towards cleft-affected infant faces. This may have implications for clinical practice concerned with supporting adult caretaking of malformation-affected infants and policies related to increasing positive perception of congenital facial disfigurement.

Investigation of mothers' elicited infant-directed speech and singing for preterm infants.

Mother's voice is a salient auditory stimulus commonly experienced during early development; after birth, characteristic acoustic modulations of mothers' infant-directed speech (IDSpeech) and singing (IDSinging) contribute to neurodevelopment. For preterm infants, early separation leads to decreased exposure to mother's voice; the impact on maternal ability to produce IDSpeech/IDSinging and infant perception of mother's voice is unknown. Fifty mother/preterm-infant dyads were enrolled in this prospective cohort study. Forty-four mothers recorded Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in coached adult-directed speech (ADSpeech), IDSpeech, and IDSinging. Between 34.0-36.9w CGA, infants underwent high-density EEG during exposure to their mother's voice recordings. Acoustic features of mothers' voice and infant cortical response were analyzed and correlated. Acoustic features of recorded maternal ADSpeech, IDSpeech, and IDSinging were significantly different. In 33 infants with EEG, mean fundamental frequency and speech production rate (SPR) variability correlated with infant responses to ADSpeech; SPR and SPR variability correlated with IDSpeech; SPR correlated with IDSinging. Correlations were found at differing scalp locations for speech versus singing. Mothers of hospitalized preterm infants differentially modulate their voice during coached recorded language; features can then be differentiated by their preterm infants thus presenting opportunities for targeted interventions when parents cannot be present. Mothers of preterm infants can record their voice with acoustically quantifiable characteristics of infant-directed singing and speech, even when not at their infant's bedside. Recorded adult- and infant-directed speech stimuli are differentially processed in the brains of hospitalized preterm infants. The ability for mothers to create acoustically-distinct infant-directed speech in the absence of their infant may be driven by coaching to achieve an approximated sense of connection with their infant.

Initial Development of the Nurse Perception of Infant Condition (NPIC) Scale.

More than 350,000U.S. infants are admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) annually and likely experience discomfort. Although nurse perceptions of infant symptoms, suffering, and quality of life (QOL) are valuable, the availability of standardized assessment tools to measure these concepts are limited. To provide preliminary evidence of the internal structure, reliability, and validity of the Nurse Perception of Infant Condition (NPIC) scale. Infants were enrolled from a Level IV NICU in the U.S. Midwest. Nurses reported on their perceptions of the infant symptom experience and their expectations for infant survival. Weekly behavioral observations of infants were obtained before and after standard delivery of care to obtain a comfort score. 237 nurses who cared for 73 infants completed 569 surveys over 28months. All NPIC items were significantly correlated with each other (P <.001). Factor analysis revealed strong evidence of a 2-factor structure (survival and suffering subscales). Both subscales demonstrated good to excellent internal consistency. Together the 2 factors explained 82% of the variability in the scale responses. Limited validity evidence was found. Evidence was found to support the internal structure and reliability of the NPIC scale. However, further item development and refinement is needed to increase the utility NPIC scale in clinical and research settings. The development of improved assessments of the infant NICU experience is warranted. Nurse perceptions of infant suffering or poor QOL may have implications for their expectations for infant survival and possibly care delivery.

‘All for the well-being of the infant’: nurses’ perceptions of preterm infants’ eye examinations: a phenomenographic study

BackgroundPreterm infants are at risk of complications due to their prematurity and Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is one of them. To discover and treat ROP the preterm infants regularly undergo eye examinations. Nurses are responsible for the infants’ care during this painful and stressful procedure.AimThe aim of this study was to explore nurses’ perceptions of preterm infants’ eye examinations.MethodsData were collected through semi-structured interviews with 10 nurses experienced in participating in preterm infants’ eye examinations. Data were analysed using a phenomenographic approach.ResultsThe results showed several perceptions of the eye examinations, and the analysis resulted in four descriptive categories: Infants are affected by the eye examination; Nurses have comprehensive overall responsibility for the infants; Parents are important to their infants, but they need support to fulfil their parental role, and Collaboration is important for the examination’s favourable outcome. The category Nurses have comprehensive overall responsibility for the infants was regarded as the most comprehensive, covering all the other categories.ConclusionsNurses felt a great responsibility during a painful and stressful procedure for preterm infants. Infants’ well-being could be better protected by interprofessional collaboration, improved nursing care and involved parents.

Face perception and social cognitive development in early autism: A prospective longitudinal study from 3 months to 7 years of age.

Autism spectrum condition (ASC) is characterized by atypical attention to eyes and faces, but the onset and impact of these atypicalities remain unclear. This prospective longitudinal study examined face perception in infants who develop ASC (N = 22, female = 5, 100% White) compared with typically developing infants (N = 131, female = 65, 55.6% White), tracking social-cognitive and ASC development through age seven. Reduced interest in direct gaze and eyes during infancy correlated with atypical development of adaptive behavior at age four and theory of mind at age seven. Principal component analyses revealed less integrated processing of facial features and eye-gaze information in ASC infants, potentially impacting their childhood social functioning. These findings highlight the intertwined nature of social-cognitive development and ASC.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy and language development: An integrative review.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) stands poised to revolutionize our understanding of auditory detection, speech perception, and language development in infants. In this study, we conducted a meticulous integrative review across Medline, Scopus, and LILACS databases, targeting investigations utilizing fNIRS to explore language-related features and cortical activation during auditory stimuli in typical infants. We included studies that used the NIRS technique to study language and cortical activation in response to auditory stimuli in typical infants between 0 and 3years old. We used the ROBINS-I tool to assess the quality and the risk of bias in the studies. Our analysis, encompassing 66 manuscripts, is presented in standardized tables for streamlined data extraction. We meticulously correlated findings with children's developmental stages, delineating crucial insights into brain development and its intricate interplay with language outcomes. Although most studies have a high risk for overall bias, especially due to the high loss of data in NIRS studies, the low risk in the other domains is predominant and homogeneous among the studies. Highlighted are the unique advantages of fNIRS for pediatric studies, underscored by its innate suitability for use in children. This review accentuates fNIRS' capacity to elucidate the neural correlates of language processing and the sequential steps of language acquisition. From birth, infants exhibit abilities that lay the foundation for language development. The progression from diffuse to specific neural activation patterns is extremely influenced by exposure to languages, social interaction, and prosodic features and, reflects the maturation of brain networks involved in language processing. In conclusion, fNIRS emerges as an indispensable functional imaging modality, providing insights into the temporal dynamics of language acquisition and associated developmental milestones. This synthesis presents the pivotal role of fNIRS in advancing our comprehension of early language development and paves the way for future research endeavors in this domain.

The measurement of young children’s nocturnal sleep health and the development of the Perception of Infant and Toddler Sleep Scale (PoITSS) in Aotearoa New Zealand whānau (families)

ObjectivesTo modify an existing questionnaire Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire – Revised (BISQ-R) to ensure that it is suitable to measure nocturnal sleep health in a diverse sample of young children from Aotearoa New Zealand whānau (families), and to develop a “Perception of Infant and Toddler Sleep Scale” (PoITSS) to use as a primary outcome measurement in an upcoming trial. MethodsItems from the BISQ-R were adapted for use among ethnically diverse whānau, and tested online with caregivers of 0-2 year old children. A PoITSS score was generated by scaling the responses from three of the questionnaire items to create a value between 0 (very poor) and 10 (very good). Caregivers provided qualitative feedback about the ease of interpreting and answering questionnaire items. ResultsCaregivers of 957 children (35% Māori, 12% Pacific) completed the questionnaire. Few differences in children’s nocturnal sleep were observed by demographic characteristics. The mean PoITSS score was 6.9 (SD 2.3) and was slightly higher among Māori children (mean difference 0.4, 95% CI 0.1, 0.7). Test-retest indicated good reliability (ICC=0.81). While the majority (86%) of caregivers did not find it difficult to answer any of the items which formed the PoITSS, qualitative feedback indicated that simple modifications to some items would help ensure that they would be well understood by most caregivers. ConclusionsItems from the BISQ-R were successfully adapted, and the PoITSS scale was shown to be appropriate, for use in ethnically diverse Aotearoa New Zealand whānau with young children.

Supporting Infants' Motor Development through Water Activities: A Preliminary Case-Control Study.

The first twelve months of an infant's life are the most dynamic time in the development of motor activities. Water activities can positively stimulate the motor skills, visual perception, and cognitive abilities of infants. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the motor development of infants aged 3-12 months participating in water activities. Participants in the study included 43 infants aged 3-12 months who attended water activities classes at Warsaw City swimming pools (n = 21) and infants not attending any classes (n = 22). Two methods of assessing motor development were used in the study: the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS) and the Early Motor Development Questionnaire (EMQ). The raw scores of the AIMS test and the EMQ questionnaire were statistically significantly different (p < 0.05) in both groups between the first and second examinations. In contrast, there was a statistically significant improvement in motor development measured by AIMS and expressed in percentiles (p = 0.002) and in percentiles for Polish children (p = 0.030) in the water group. The age-independent total score of the EMQ before and after the intervention did not change significantly (p = 0.149). The water environment has the potential to support the motor development of infants aged 3-12 months.

The developmental pattern of native and non-native speech perception during the 1st year of life in Japanese infants

Language development during the 1st year of life is characterized by perceptual attunement: following language-general perception, a decline in the perception of non-native phonemes and a parallel increase in or maintenance of the perception of native phonemes. While this general pattern is well established, there are still many gaps in the literature. First, most evidence documenting these patterns comes from “Minority world countries” with only a limited number of studies from “Majority world countries”, limiting the range of languages and contrasts assessed. Second, few studies test both the developmental patterns of native and non-native speech perception in the same group of infants, making it hard to draw conclusions on simultaneous decline in non-native and increase in native speech perception. Such limitations are in part due to the effort that goes into testing developing speech sound perception, where usually only discrimination of one contrast per infant can be tested at a time. The present study thus set out to assess the feasibility of assessing a given infant on their discrimination of two speech sound contrasts during the same lab visit. It leveraged the presence of documented patterns of the improvement of native and the decline of non-native phoneme discrimination abilities in Japanese, therefore assessing native and non-native speech perception in Japanese infants from 6 to 12 months of age. Results demonstrated that 76 % of infants contributed discrimination data for both contrasts. We found a decline in non-native speech perception evident in discrimination of the non-native /ɹ/-/l/ consonant contrast at 9–11, but not at 11–13 months of age. Additionally, a parallel increase in native speech perception was demonstrated evident in an absence of native phonemic vowel length discrimination at 6–7 and 9–11 months and a discrimination of this contrast at 11–13 months of age. These results, based on a simultaneous assessment of native and non-native speech perception in Japanese-learning infants, demonstrate the feasibility of assessing the discrimination of two contrasts in one testing session and corroborate theoretical proposals on two hallmarks of perceptual attunement: a decrease in non-native and a facilitation in native speech perception during the first year of life.

Perception of Facial Cues to Trustworthiness in Infancy: Insights from the Spatial Frequency Filtering Approach

AbstractA crucial aspect of human social competence is the ability to spontaneously and rapidly infer from facial cues whether others are likely to approach us with friendliness or hostility—that is, trustworthiness. The rapid and automatic nature of these inferences has prompted the claim that they may originate from evolutionary pressures to detect potential threats, thus enhancing our chances of survival. However, the developmental origins of this social skill remain a topic of ongoing debate. Recent evidence shows that infants' brains and looking time behaviors differentiate between faces varying along the trustworthiness continuum, but the question about the nature of the facial cues they rely on remains open. In this review, we propose the spatial frequency (SF) filtering approach (i.e., the selective removal of spatial frequency bands from the image) as a useful tool for investigating this question, and specifically whether infants' discrimination of facial expressions of emotion share common visual and neural mechanisms with discrimination of facial cues associated with trustworthiness inferences. The SF filtering approach could shed light on the neural and perceptual mechanisms underlying trustworthiness perception in infancy, providing insights into whether and how these mechanisms change across development. The evidence gathered through this method would prove critical to the understanding of the developmental origins of trustworthiness perception.

경계선 유아에 대한 유아교사의 FGI 분석

The purpose of this study is to explore early childhood teachers' perceptions of borderline infants. To this end, seven early childhood teachers currently working at early childhood education institutions were analyzed using FGI (Focus Group Interview) to identify which infants are recognized as borderline infants, what difficulties they have in their relationship with borderline infants, and what they think are the ways to help borderline infants adjust to kindergarten smoothly.&#x0D; As a result of the study, first, as implications for borderline infants, early childhood teachers considered ‘unbearable ambiguous infants’, ‘infants who cannot communicate at all’, and ‘infants who have difficulty establishing social relationships’ as borderline infants. Second, the necessary conditions for borderline infants were ‘the teacher's ungiving mind’, ‘communication and cooperation with guardians’, and ‘support systems inside and outside kindergartens’. The results of this study can be used as basic data to find ways to support young children's adaptation to kindergarten by understanding the meaning teachers experience in the process of guiding borderline infants in the kindergarten field.

The effects of prolonged pacifier use on language development in infants and toddlers.

Pacifiers are a common soothing tool used by parents to calm and comfort infants and toddlers. While pacifiers can provide temporary relief, there is growing concern about the potential long-term effects of prolonged pacifier use on language and cognitive development. Previous studies have suggested that prolonged use of pacifiers may have negative consequences on language outcomes in infants and toddlers, especially during the first few years of life known to be a critical period for language development. Previous studies have shown that children who use pacifiers extensively have smaller vocabulary sizes at 1 and 2 years of age which can have subsequent effects on socioemotional. In addition, significant association between greater frequency of daytime pacifier use and worsening of cognitive outcomes was shown. Furthermore, research has shown a strong dose-response association between intense pacifier use up to 4 years of age and lower IQ at 6 years. Recently, the importance of oral motor movements and sensorimotor production for speech perception in infants as young as 6 months has been highlighted, raising important questions on the effect of oral motor movement restrictions at an early age. Together, these findings raise concern about the potential long-term effects of prolonged pacifier use on language and cognitive development at a critical time in child development. However, it is still debatable within the scientific field the potential relationship between pacifier use and language development in early life most likely due to the complexity of studying child development. This mini review aims to provide valuable insights for parents, caregivers, and healthcare professionals in making informed decisions and understand regarding pacifier use for infants and toddlers.

Analisis Perkembangan Masa Bayi

The research aims to analyze the understanding of emotional development in babies, how cognitive development in babies is, what the risks or dangers are to babies, and what are the implications of infancy development in counseling services. The research method used in this research is library research. It is a search and research of literature by reading and reviewing various journals. Data collection techniques use library research in the form of books, journals and other studies. The data analysis technique uses descriptive analysis. The results of the research show that babies' emotions are very susceptible to habituation, there are several differences in this pattern and also in the stimuli that cause it. development of understanding. Infant perception through sensory explanations. Like babies looking, feeling, smelling, and painting all objects within their reach. Maturation during infancy usually occurs through direct experience with the environment and interaction with objects and people around them. Dangers during infancy can be physical dangers and psychological dangers. Physical dangers such as excessive crying, it could also be a baby suffering from brain damage or other birth defects. And psychological dangers such as emotional dangers, this usually occurs because a lack of love from parents towards the baby can give rise to unstable emotions in the baby. The implication of development during infancy in counseling services is to ensure the baby's development and provide services according to the baby's condition.

Сравнительный анализ подходов Л.С. Выготского и Дж. Боулби к развитию ребенка на первом году жизни

&lt;p&gt;Objective: To compare the positions of L.S. Vygotsky and J. Bowlby regarding three critical aspects of mental development of a child: the characteristics of newborn perception, the extent of an infant's engagement in early social interaction, and the psychological nature of the bond between an infant and its mother. Method: a comparative analysis. Results. The authors' viewpoints share common ground in acknowledging the child's immediate engagement in social relationships following birth and the pivotal role of a primary caregiver figure in the child's development. Nevertheless, disparities in the interpretation of &amp;ldquo;primordial we" and "attachment" concepts, employed by the authors to elucidate the specifics of the child's connection with the mother or a caregiver, are explored. The study reveals a divergence between L.S. Vygotsky's postulate of infant helplessness, forming the foundation of the developmental social context at this stage, and J. Bowlby's perspective, emphasizing the presence of highly effective inborn forms of social perception and behavior in infants. Conclusions. These disparities in the authors' viewpoints may be attributed to their reliance on different research paradigms, with one emphasizing culture-centred approach and the other adopting an evolution-centred approach. L.S. Vygotsky's assertion about infant helplessness, though lacking empirical validation, maintains its theoretical importance as a direction in the search for the unique course of human development. Keywords: cultural-historical theory, attachment theory, newborn, childhood, infancy.&lt;/p&gt;

The Influence of Memory on Visual Perception in Infants, Children, and Adults.

Perception is not an independent, in-the-moment event. Instead, perceiving involves integrating prior expectations with current observations. How does this ability develop from infancy through adulthood? We examined how prior visual experience shapes visual perception in infants, children, and adults. Using an identical task across age groups, we exposed participants to pairs of colorful stimuli and implicitly measured their ability to discriminate relative saturation levels. Results showed that adult participants were biased by previously experienced exemplars, and exhibited weakened in-the-moment discrimination between different levels of saturation. In contrast, infants and children showed less influence of memory in their perception, and they actually outperformed adults in discriminating between current levels of saturation. Our findings suggest that as humans develop, their perception relies more on prior experience and less on current observation.

Bilingual infants readily orient to novel visual stimuli.

Bilingualism has been shown to modify infants' responses in a range of domains. In particular, early bilingual experience is associated with greater flexibility and openness in infant perception and learning. In this study, we investigated whether bilingual infants demonstrate more fundamental differences in how they explore their environment in ways that could contribute to greater openness. Specifically, we investigated whether bilingual infants orient more rapidly to new information. Capitalizing on a classic paradigm by Fantz (1964), monolingual and bilingual infants (5-6 months and 8-9 months) were simultaneously presented with familiar and novel stimuli. As they received increased exposure to the familiar and novel stimuli, monolingual infants demonstrated a null preference, followed by a novelty preference, as previously evidenced in Fantz's study. In contrast, an orientation toward novelty emerged more readily in bilingual infants. Characteristics of a bilingual environment that may modulate the allocation of attention toward novelty are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Building 3D Generative Models from Minimal Data.

We propose a method for constructing generative models of 3D objects from a single 3D mesh and improving them through unsupervised low-shot learning from 2D images. Our method produces a 3D morphable model that represents shape and albedo in terms of Gaussian processes. Whereas previous approaches have typically built 3D morphable models from multiple high-quality 3D scans through principal component analysis, we build 3D morphable models from a single scan or template. As we demonstrate in the face domain, these models can be used to infer 3D reconstructions from 2D data (inverse graphics) or 3D data (registration). Specifically, we show that our approach can be used to perform face recognition using only a single 3D template (one scan total, not one per person). We extend our model to a preliminary unsupervised learning framework that enables the learning of the distribution of 3D faces using one 3D template and a small number of 2D images. Our approach is motivated as a potential model for the origins of face perception in human infants, who appear to start with an innate face template and subsequently develop a flexible system for perceiving the 3D structure of any novel face from experience with only 2D images of a relatively small number of familiar faces.

Sensorimotor foundations of speech perception in infancy

The perceptual system for speech is highly organized from early infancy. This organization bootstraps young human learners' ability to acquire their native speech and language from speech input. Here, we review behavioral and neuroimaging evidence that perceptual systems beyond the auditory modality are also specialized for speech in infancy, and that motor and sensorimotor systems can influence speech perception even in infants too young to produce speech-like vocalizations. These investigations complement existing literature on infant vocal development and on the interplay between speech perception and production systems in adults. We conclude that a multimodal speech and language network is present before speech-like vocalizations emerge.

Development of navigational affordance perception in infancy

Development of navigational affordance perception in infancy

Infant Phonetic Learning as Perceptual Space Learning: A Crosslinguistic Evaluation of Computational Models.

In the first year of life, infants' speech perception becomes attuned to the sounds of their native language. This process of early phonetic learning has traditionally been framed as phonetic category acquisition. However, recent studies have hypothesized that the attunement may instead reflect a perceptual space learning process that does not involve categories. In this article, we explore the idea of perceptual space learning by implementing five different perceptual space learning models and testing them on three phonetic contrasts that have been tested in the infant speech perception literature. We reproduce and extend previous results showing that a perceptual space learning model that uses only distributional information about the acoustics of short time slices of speech can account for at least some crosslinguistic differences in infant perception. Moreover, we find that a second perceptual space learning model, which benefits from word-level guidance. performs equally well in capturing crosslinguistic differences in infant speech perception. These results provide support for the general idea of perceptual space learning as a theory of early phonetic learning but suggest that more fine-grained data are needed to distinguish between different formal accounts. Finally, we provide testable empirical predictions of the two most promising models and show that these are not identical, making it possible to independently evaluate each model in experiments with infants in future research.