Learning in Infants of Chronically Depressed Mothers

描述（由申请人提供）：婴儿指向言语（Infant-directed speech， ID）是幼儿刺激的重要来源，但抑郁母亲产生的ID言语在感知和情感上是平坦的（1,2）。抑郁母亲的四个月大的婴儿在条件注意范式中表现出联想学习缺陷，在这种范式中，他们自己母亲的ID语音的一小段标志着笑脸的出现(3)。慢性抑郁症母亲的6 - 13个月大的婴儿，与4个月大的婴儿不同，对不熟悉的非抑郁症母亲产生的“高质量”本我言语的反应，进一步无法学习(4)。然而，这些年龄较大的婴儿在对男性本我言语的反应中表现出比正常情况更好的学习能力(4)。拟议的研究有三个具体目标。具体目的1是通过在4个月和12个月时对抑郁和非抑郁母亲的婴儿进行“高质量”母亲和父亲的本我言语的联想学习测试，研究母亲本我言语对广义学习缺陷的反应。具体目的2是研究婴儿对自己抑郁和/或非抑郁的父母本我言语的学习反应之间的关系，以及亲子互动和依恋关系的质量是否介导本我言语对婴儿学习的影响。具体目标3是评估那些父母都患有慢性抑郁症的12个月大的婴儿对不熟悉的非抑郁症父母所产生的“高质量”本我言语的反应，以确定这些婴儿是否表现出最广泛的学习缺陷。这些研究很重要，因为它们允许对慢性抑郁症母亲所生婴儿的学习缺陷的发展进行严格的分析，并指出一种看似合理的机制，通过这种机制，最初有能力的学习者发展为普遍的学习缺陷。这些实验有望为未来的研究奠定基础，旨在预防抑郁症母亲所生婴儿的学习问题。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Infant-directed (ID) speech is an important source of stimulation for young infants, but depressed mothers produce ID speech that is perceptually and affectively flat (1,2). Four-month-old infants of depressed mothers exhibit associative learning deficits in a conditioned-attention paradigm, in which a brief segment of their own mother's ID speech signals the appearance of a smiling face (3). Six- to 13-month-old infants of chronically depressed mothers, unlike 4-month-olds, further fail to learn in response to "high-quality" ID speech produced by an unfamiliar non-depressed mother (4). However, these older infants exhibit better- than-normal learning in response to male ID speech (4). The proposed research has three Specific Aims. Specific Aim 1 is to investigate the development of the generalized learning deficit in response to maternal ID speech by giving individual infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers' associative learning tests with "high-quality" maternal and paternal ID speech at both 4 and 12 months of age. Specific Aim 2 is to examine the relationship between infant learning in response to the infant's own depressed and/or non-depressed mother's and father's ID speech, and whether the quality of parent-infant interaction and attachment relationships mediate the effects of ID speech on infant learning. Specific Aim 3 is to assess 12-month-old infants whose mothers and fathers are both chronically depressed for their responses to "high-quality" ID speech produced by unfamiliar non-depressed mothers and fathers, to determine if these infants exhibit the broadest learning deficits. These studies are important because they permit a rigorous analysis of the development of learning deficits in infants of chronically depressed mothers, and point to a plausible mechanism through which initially able learners develop generalized learning deficits. These experiments promise to lay the foundation for future studies aimed at preventing learning problems in infants of depressed mothers.