Neural and Caregiver Contributions to the Development of Joint Attention

项目总结/摘要 在一个共同的参照点周围与他人协调注意力的能力，称为联合注意力， 是人类经验的基础，对人类在社会、认知和心理方面的健康发展至关重要。 语言领域现有的研究表明，联合注意力技能出现在生命的第一年 并且在不同的婴儿之间有着显著的差异。然而，关于共同注意力如何发展的关键问题仍然存在 以及如何解释婴儿期观察到的联合注意力的个体差异。具体来说，神经 在婴儿早期出现的联合注意力的潜在机制很少被探索或理解， 工作已经研究了经验因素，如婴儿的共同注意力可以支持婴儿的共同注意力。整体 本申请的目的是提供关键的新的洞察机制解释的发展， 婴儿期的注意力。特别是，该项目旨在阐明神经和神经元的因素， 有助于婴儿在生命的第一年参与联合注意力的能力。核心假设是， 婴儿联合注意能力的出现可以解释为：（1）早期成熟，组织和功能 显示支持社会理解的大脑区域网络的激活（即，“社会大脑”），以及（2） 与直接支撑联合注意力技能和影响力的应急和响应式护理人员的经验 婴儿的大脑组织和功能。为了验证这一假设，婴儿联合注意行为，婴儿社会 将观察到大脑活动以及母亲随情况而变化的、反应灵敏的护理水平 纵向在两个时间点的婴儿-母亲二人组的大样本：年龄4-5个月，当联合注意 能力刚刚出现，婴儿的大脑特别容易受到社会经验的影响; 11-12个月，此时联合注意力技能得到更充分的发展，并且在婴儿之间存在显著差异。 婴儿的社会大脑活动将通过脑电图测量，当婴儿“休息”时（作为 神经成熟/社会大脑的组织）和实时、自然、联合注意的互动过程中 和看护者在一起拟议的研究是创新的，因为它调查了发展过程 发生在生命的第一年，并采用新的方法，评估婴儿的行为和大脑活动 在自然主义的、社会互动的环境中，共同注意力得到发展和使用。拟议 这项研究是重要的，因为它有望揭示神经机制的出现， 联合注意力以及偶然的、反应性的运动如何支持婴儿的联合注意力和大脑 发展揭示这些机制将扩大对健康儿童发育的理解， 为因发育障碍而面临风险的儿童采取知情干预措施（例如，孤独症）或改变的 环境（例如，母亲抑郁，父母不敏感），影响婴儿期的社会功能。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The capacity to coordinate attention with others around a common point of reference, known as joint attention, is fundamental to human experience and critical to healthy human development in the social, cognitive, and linguistic domains. Existing research has demonstrated that joint attention skills emerge in the first year of life and vary meaningfully across infants. However, critical questions remain regarding how joint attention develops and what explains the individual variability in joint attention observed during infancy. Specifically, the neural mechanisms underlying joint attention as it emerges in early infancy are little explored or understood, and little work has examined how experiential factors such as caregiving can support infants’ joint attention. The overall objective of this application is to provide critical new insight into the mechanisms explaining the development of joint attention during infancy. In particular, this project aims to elucidate the neural and caregiving factors that contribute to infants’ ability to engage in joint attention during the first year of life. The central hypothesis is that infants’ emerging capacity for joint attention is explained by (1) early maturation, organization, and functional activation of a network of brain regions shown to support social understanding (i.e., the “social brain”), and (2) experience with contingent and responsive caregivers that directly scaffold joint attention skills and influence infants’ brain organization and function. To test this hypothesis, infant joint attention behavior, infant social brain activity, and naturally varying levels of mothers’ contingent, responsive caregiving will be observed longitudinally in a large sample of infant-mother dyads at two timepoints: age 4-5 months, when joint attention abilities are just emerging and the infant brain is particularly open to the influence of social experience; and age 11-12 months, when joint attention skills are more fully developed and vary meaningfully across infants. Infant social brain activity will be measured via EEG both when infants are ‘at rest’ (as an index of neuromaturation/organization of the social brain) and during real-time, naturalistic, joint-attentive interactions with the caregiver. The proposed research is innovative because it investigates developmental processes occurring early in the first year of life, and employs novel methods that assess infant behavior and brain activity in the naturalistic, social-interactive settings in which joint attention develops and is used. The proposed research is significant because it is expected to reveal the neural mechanisms underlying the emergence of joint attention and how contingent, responsive caregiving supports infants’ joint attention and brain development. Revealing these mechanisms will expand understanding of healthy child development and inform interventions for children at risk due to developmental disorders (e.g., autism) or altered caregiving environments (e.g., maternal depression, insensitive parenting) that influence social functioning in infancy.