DHB: From Social Routines to Early Language: Tracking Neural, Cognitive, and Family Influences from Infancy into Preschool

人类婴儿必须学习复杂的技能，才能与父母和其他人有效地互动，但这些社交技能在不同的婴儿身上出现的年龄有所不同。我们如何解释这种变化？婴儿如何参与他们的社会世界，从而学习日常生活，与其他人有效地互动？该项目跟踪了一组45名健康的幼儿，他们从3到18个月大就对社会刺激的各种认知和情感反应进行了广泛的测试。同样的婴儿在家里经常与父母互动。目前的项目询问这些幼儿的新兴社会技能如何反映他们在婴儿时期认知和情感的个体差异，以及父母提供的不同社会输入。该项目的重点是从18个月到24个月的语言和模仿技能的变化，以及这些技能背后的大脑动力学。从3个月大开始接受测试和观察的幼儿将在20至24个月大时再次被邀请参加。新的会议将使用一个独特的系统在加州大学圣地亚哥分校：一个移动的大脑动力学（MoBI）设施记录脑电图（脑电图）和身体运动跟踪数据同时从两个人。该项目将使用该系统记录幼儿和父母进行三种类型的互动：1）幼儿跟随父母的指向（或视线），2）幼儿对父母所说的话做出反应，3）幼儿模仿父母的简单动作。这些互动代表了幼儿重要的社会成就。将对幼儿和父母头皮上测量的电位进行高级EEG分析。与此同时，特殊的摄像机将记录他们的头部和手臂的位置。因此，这种设计将产生幼儿和父母大脑电生理学（反映他们的思维和情感反应）和身体位置变化的连续记录，因为他们相互作用。此外，幼儿将完成一系列的行为和语言测试。该项目将开创一个研究幼儿社会发展的新范式，并产生最复杂和最完整的数据，说明早期社会注意力行为与早期语言和模仿的关系，以及这些关系背后的大脑过程。研究结果将对幼儿教育、发育障碍的治疗和育儿实践产生影响。

Human infants must learn complex skills to interact effectively with parents and other humans, but these social skills emerge at somewhat different ages in different infants. How can we explain this variability? How do infants attend to their social world, and thereby learn routines to interact effectively with other people? This project follows a group of 45 healthy toddlers who have been tested extensively from 3 to 18 months of age on a variety of changing cognitive and emotional responses to social stimuli. The same infants have been observed regularly at home in interactions with their parents. The current project asks how these toddlers' emerging social skills reflect their individual differences in cognition and emotion as infants, and on the different social input provided by their parents. The project focuses on changes in language and imitation skills from 18 to 24 months of age, and the brain dynamics that underlie these skills. The toddlers who were tested and observed starting at 3 months of age will be invited to participate again at 20 to 24 months of age. New sessions will use a unique system at UC San Diego: a Mobile Brain Dynamics (MoBI) facility for recording EEG (electroencephalographic) and body motion-tracking data simultaneously from two people. The project will use this system to record toddlers and parents as they engage in three types of interactions: 1) toddlers following parent's pointing (or line-of-gaze), 2) toddlers reacting to words spoken by parents, and 3) toddlers imitating parents' simple actions. These interactions represent important social achievements for toddlers. Advanced EEG analysis will be performed on electrical potentials measured on toddlers' and parents' scalps. At the same time special cameras will record the positions of their heads and arms. This design will therefore yield a continuous record of changes in the toddlers' and parents' brain electrophysiology (reflecting their thinking and emotional reactions) and body positions as they interact. In addition, toddlers will complete a battery of behavioral and language tests. This project will pioneer a new paradigm for studying the social development of young children, and yield the most complex and complete data available on how early social-attention behaviors relate to early language and imitation, and brain processes underlying these relations. The results will have implications for early childhood education, treatment of developmental disabilities, and parenting practices.