Probing the origins of approach and avoidance processes: brain, behavioral, and contextual factors

适当地将情绪反应与环境中的线索相匹配的能力在婴儿期开始发展，并且对整个生命周期的心理健康和幸福至关重要。婴儿学会接近积极的刺激，例如对快乐的面孔微笑，并避免危险或威胁性的刺激，例如远离愤怒的面孔。这项研究的目的是了解婴儿期接近和回避过程的大脑基础，以及亲子互动在这些过程如何发展到童年的作用。这项研究将促进我们对大脑中接近和回避的理解，以及父母和婴儿之间的互动如何影响他们的发展。这项拟议的研究将汇集幼儿专家，学生，家长和研究人员，围绕早期大脑和认知发展的研究建立一个社区。该研究将通过观察6至12个月大的婴儿对积极和恐惧刺激的反应以及父母对婴儿在家中行为的报告来测量他们的接近和回避行为。这项研究将跟踪这些儿童，直到他们4岁时，接近和回避行为以及儿童的决策将被测量。在这两个发展阶段，该研究将使用脑电图（EEG）记录儿童的大脑活动，这是一种用于记录大脑电活动的技术，以了解大脑活动的个体差异如何与接近和回避的发展相关，以及亲子互动如何影响它们。拟议的研究将提供一个新的理解如何接近和回避过程中形成的早期发展，并可能阐明我们如何可以帮助人们发展健康的情绪调节从婴儿期开始。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

The ability to appropriately match an emotional response to cues in the environment begins developing during infancy and is critical to mental health and well-being throughout the life span. Infants learn to approach positive stimuli, such as smiling at happy faces, and avoid dangerous or threatening stimuli, such as turning away from angry faces. The goal of the proposed research is to understand the brain basis of approach and avoidance processes during infancy and the role of parent-child interactions in how those processes develop into childhood. This research will advance our understanding of approach and avoidance in the brain and how interactions between parents and infants influence their development. This proposed research will bring together early childhood specialists, students, parents and researchers to build a community around the study of early brain and cognitive development. The study will measure approach and avoidance behaviors in 6- to 12-month-old infants by observing their responses to positive and fearful stimuli and by parent-report of infants’ behavior in their home. The study will follow these children until they are age 4 when approach and avoidance behaviors as well as children’s decision-making will be measured. At both points in development, the study will record children’s brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG), a technique used to record the brain’s electrical activity to understand how individual differences in brain activity are related to development of approach and avoidance as well as how parent-child interactions might influence them. The proposed research will provide a new understanding of how approach and avoidance processes are shaped in early development and may shed light on how we can help people develop healthy emotion regulation beginning in infancy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.