Infants' brain responses to pupillary changes in others are affected by race
Infants' brain responses to pupillary changes in others are affected by race
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DOI：
10.1038/s41598-019-40661-z
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发表时间：
2019-03-13
影响因子：
4.6
通讯作者：
Grossmann, Tobias
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Kelsey, Caroline M.;Krol, Kathleen M.;Grossmann, Tobias
对眼睛线索的敏感反应在人类社会交往中起着关键作用。观察到的瞳孔大小的变化提供了一系列社会相关的信息，包括关于一个人的情绪和唤醒状态的线索。最近，人们发现婴儿会模仿他人瞳孔的变化，这为基于眼睛的社会交流提供了一个基础机制。在成年人中，瞳孔变化的感知受到种族的影响。在这里，我们研究了种族是否以及如何影响神经处理其他人的瞳孔变化在早期个体发育。我们使用功能性近红外光谱（fNIRS）测量了9个月大的婴儿在观看自己种族和其他种族眼睛的背景下对瞳孔扩张和收缩的大脑反应。我们的研究结果表明，只有当对自己种族的眼睛做出反应时，婴儿的大脑才能区分瞳孔大小的变化。具体来说，婴儿在观察自己种族的瞳孔扩张时，右上级颞叶皮层的反应增强。此外，在处理其他种族瞳孔变化时，婴儿会激活背外侧前额叶皮层，这是一个与认知控制功能相关的大脑区域。这些研究结果表明，在发展的早期，对瞳孔变化的基本反应过程受到种族和种族间相互作用的影响，可能会提供更大的认知控制或努力。这为我们理解对他人瞳孔信号做出反应的早期起源提供了重要信息，并进一步强调了种族对社会信号处理的影响。
Sensitive responding to eye cues plays a key role during human social interactions. Observed changes in pupillary size provide a range of socially-relevant information including cues regarding a person's emotional and arousal states. Recently, infants have been found to mimic observed pupillary changes in others, instantiating a foundational mechanism for eye-based social communication. Among adults, perception of pupillary changes is affected by race. Here, we examined whether and how race impacts the neural processing of others' pupillary changes in early ontogeny. We measured 9-month-old infants' brain responses to dilating and constricting pupils in the context of viewing own-race and other-race eyes using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Our results show that only when responding to own-race eyes, infants' brains distinguished between changes in pupillary size. Specifically, infants showed enhanced responses in the right superior temporal cortex when observing own-race pupil dilation. Moreover, when processing other-race pupillary changes, infants recruited the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a brain region linked to cognitive control functions. These findings suggest that, early in development, the fundamental process of responding to pupillary changes is impacted by race and interracial interactions may afford greater cognitive control or effort. This critically informs our understanding of the early origins of responding to pupillary signals in others and further highlights the impact of race on the processing of social signals.