Collaborative Research: Examining Behavioral and Neurophysiological Precursors of Effortful Control

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This project is about self-regulation, critical to wide ranging developmental outcomes across the lifespan. We know little about the origins and initial development of these skills during the first two years of life. It is during infancy, however, that behavioral and neurophysiological underpinnings of emotion reactivity, the precursor of regulation, are manifested. Moreover, sex differences in these foundational mechanisms have not been examined, despite considerable evidence of more advanced early regulation for girls. This research provides an intensive behavioral and brain activity examination of emotion reactivity, making connections with emerging self-regulation. Our study is the first to examine: (1) development of brain activity linked with fear/approach and related information processing biases across infancy, relying on emotion-eliciting tasks; (2) sex differences in brain activity changes across infancy, correspondence between behavioral and brain activity change patterns, and the extent to which these predict self-regulation around the 2nd birthday. Identified connections between reactivity and regulation will inform existing developmental theories and results will be disseminated to parents and early childhood educators, maximizing support for emerging child self-regulation.Starting in infancy, regulation is supported by attentional capacity and becomes essential to functioning across most areas of life. Despite this importance, the origins of self-regulation are still poorly understood, especially with respect to the emotional underpinnings. Emotional reactivity “comes online” first, creating a foundation for subsequent development of regulatory capacity. Thus, growth in the principal domains of reactivity (fear and approach) in infancy, and links between these developmental changes and emerging self-regulation, require further study. We will answer lingering questions regarding how fearfulness and approach orientation on the behavioral and brain activity level are interrelated, and the extent to which these characteristics set the stage for self-regulation. We will leverage electroencephalography (EEG) recordings and multiple evaluations across the first two years of life to discern how changes in fear and approach contribute to the development of attention-based self-regulation, and how these processes may differ for boys and girls. As a result, parents and educators can be instructed regarding developmental periods during which effective negotiation of extreme changes in child approach or avoidance are particularly important from the standpoint of promoting regulation.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.