Prenatal Origins of Infant Social Responsiveness

在这个项目中，Lickliter博士将研究产前感觉体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。尽管社会反应性是人类婴儿行为的一个基本特征，并支持情绪、认知和语言的发展，但目前对产前感觉体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种差距，一些发育科学家认为，婴儿的社会反应能力是与生俱来的，与先前的经验无关。我们缺乏这方面的知识，部分原因是对人类胎儿进行的产前操作非常有限。此前，利克利特博士和他的研究团队使用动物模型--短尾鹌鹑--进行了研究，结果表明，出生前的感觉体验在建立新生儿出生后的知觉偏好方面起着关键作用。这项研究项目将扩展这项工作，以确定哪些类型的产前经历有助于早期社交技能的出现，包括社交定向、社交应急检测和学习以及个人对社交伙伴的识别能力。通过比较接受改良产前感觉体验的鹌鹑雏鸡和接受典型产前感觉体验的雏鸡，本项目将揭示哪些类型和数量的产前体验促进或干扰新生儿社会反应性的发展。该项目的研究结果将为理解产前经验和出生后行为之间的关系提供基础，并将为早期知觉、认知和社会发展的以人为基础的研究提供方向。这项工作的结果将使产前阶段更好地整合到当前典型和非典型行为发展理论中。例如，所获得的发现可以为早产儿的护理和管理提供参考，早产儿占美国新生儿的12%，由于被剥夺了正常的产前感觉体验模式，他们面临着非典型感知、认知和社会后果的风险。该项目还将为来自不同种族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、座谈会、期刊出版物和书籍章节的陈述中广泛传播。

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.