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. 2022 Nov;93(6):e607-e621.
doi: 10.1111/cdev.13831. Epub 2022 Jul 29.

Developmental patterns of affective attention across the first 2 years of life

Lori B Reider  1 , Laura Bierstedt  1 , Jessica L Burris  1 , Alicia Vallorani  2 , Kelley E Gunther  3 , Kristin A Buss  2 , Koraly Pérez-Edgar  2 , Andy P Field  4 , Vanessa LoBue  1
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Developmental patterns of affective attention across the first 2 years of life

Lori B Reider et al. Child Dev. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

This study examined patterns of attention toward affective stimuli in a longitudinal sample of typically developing infants (N = 357, 147 females, 50% White, 22% Latinx, 16% African American/Black, 3% Asian, 8% mixed race, 1% not reported) using two eye-tracking tasks that measure vigilance to (rapid detection), engagement with (total looking toward), and disengagement from (latency to looking away) emotional facial configurations. Infants completed each task at 4, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months of age from 2016 to 2020. Multilevel growth models demonstrate that, over the first 2 years of life, infants became faster at detecting and spent more time engaging with angry over neutral faces. These results have implications for our understanding of the development of affect-biased attention.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Task schematic for the vigilance task
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Task schematic for the overlap task
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Final model predictions: Latency to fixate the face (vigilance task)
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Final model predictions: Engagement with the face (overlap task)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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