Prenatal Origins of Infant Social Responsiveness

在这个项目中，Lickliter博士将研究产前感觉经验是否以及在多大程度上有助于产后社会反应的出现和发展。虽然社会反应是人类婴儿行为的一个基本特征，并支持情感，认知和语言的发展，但目前对产前感觉经验在新生儿社会行为中的可能作用知之甚少。由于我们知识上的这一差距，一些发展科学家认为婴儿的社会反应是与生俱来的，不依赖于先前的经验。我们缺乏这方面的知识，部分原因是由于非常有限的产前操作可能与人类胎儿。Lickliter博士和他的研究小组以前曾用一种动物模型，即鹌鹑，证明了产前的感觉经验在新生儿建立产后知觉偏好方面起着关键作用。这项研究项目将扩大这项工作，以确定什么类型的产前经验促进早期社会技能的出现，包括社会定向，社会应急检测和学习，以及个人识别社会伙伴的能力。通过比较鹌鹑小鸡谁收到修改产前感觉经验与小鸡谁收到典型模式的产前感觉经验，该项目将揭示什么类型和数量的产前经验促进或干扰新生儿社会反应的发展。本研究的结果将为理解产前经验和产后行为之间的关系提供基础，并将为以人类为基础的早期知觉、认知和社会发展研究提供信息。这项工作的结果将使产前时期更好地融入典型和非典型行为发展的现有理论。例如，所获得的研究结果可以为早产儿的护理和管理提供信息，早产儿占美国出生婴儿的12%，由于被剥夺了产前感觉体验的正常模式，因此存在非典型感知，认知和社会后果的风险。该项目还将为来自不同族裔背景的研究生和本科生提供多种培训机会。这项工作的结果将在会议、学术讨论会、期刊出版物和书籍章节中广泛传播。

In this project, Dr. Lickliter will examine whether and to what extent prenatal sensory experience contributes to the emergence and development of postnatal social responsiveness. Although social responsiveness is a fundamental characteristic of human infant behavior and supports emotional, cognitive, and language development, little is currently known about the possible roles of prenatal sensory experience in neonatal social behavior. As a result of this gap in our knowledge, some developmental scientists have suggested that infant social responsiveness is innate, independent of prior experience. Our lack of knowledge in this area is due in part to the very restricted prenatal manipulations possible with human fetuses. Working with an animal model, the bobwhite quail, Dr. Lickliter and his research team have previously shown that prenatal sensory experience plays a key role in establishing postnatal perceptual preferences in the neonate. This research project will extend this work to determine what types of prenatal experiences facilitate the emergence of early social skills, including social orienting, social contingency detection and learning, and the ability for individual recognition of social partners. By comparing quail chicks who received modified prenatal sensory experience with chicks who received typical patterns of prenatal sensory experience, this project will uncover what types and amounts of prenatal experience promote or interfere with the development of neonatal social responsiveness. The findings of this project will provide a foundation for understanding the relationship between prenatal experience and postnatal behavior and will inform research directions for human-based studies of early perceptual, cognitive, and social development.The results of this work will allow better integration of the prenatal period into current theories of both typical and atypical behavioral development. For example, the findings obtained can inform the care and management of preterm infants, who make up 12% of births in the US and are at risk for atypical perceptual, cognitive, and social outcomes as a result of being deprived of normal patterns of prenatal sensory experience. The project will also provide multiple training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students from ethnically diverse backgrounds. The results of this work will be broadly disseminated in presentations at conferences, colloquia, journal publications, and book chapters.