UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2012 Nov;53(11):1118-27. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02599.x. Epub 2012 Aug 17.
Developing control of attention helps infants to regulate their emotions, and individual differences in attention skills may shape how infants perceive and respond to their socio-emotional environments. This study examined whether the temperamental dimensions of self-regulation and negative emotionality relate to infants' attention skills and whether the emotional content of the attended stimulus affects this relation.
Event-related potentials provided a neurophysiological index of attention (Nc) while 3 to 13-month-old infants viewed images of happy and fearful facial expressions. Temperament was measured via parent report using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised.
The peak latency of the Nc was slower for infants with lower regulatory capacity, independent of facial expression. The amplitude of the Nc over right fronto-central electrodes was related to both self-regulation and negative emotionality, but the effects differed by emotion: infants with better self-regulation had larger Nc responses to fearful faces, and infants scoring higher on negative emotionality had larger Nc responses to happy faces. These results are discussed in relation to the development of executive attention networks and their modulation by the amygdala.
发展注意力控制有助于婴儿调节情绪，注意力技能的个体差异可能会影响婴儿感知和对社会情感环境的反应方式。本研究考察了气质维度的自我调节和负性情绪是否与婴儿的注意力技能有关，以及所关注刺激的情绪内容是否会影响这种关系。
事件相关电位（ERP）为注意力（Nc）提供了神经生理学指标，而 3 至 13 个月大的婴儿观看了快乐和恐惧面部表情的图像。通过使用婴儿行为问卷修订版（Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised）进行家长报告来测量气质。
与面部表情无关，调节能力较低的婴儿的 Nc 峰值潜伏期较慢。右额中央电极的 Nc 振幅与自我调节和负性情绪有关，但影响因情绪而异：自我调节能力较好的婴儿对恐惧面孔的 Nc 反应较大，而负性情绪得分较高的婴儿对快乐面孔的 Nc 反应较大。这些结果与执行注意网络的发展及其受杏仁核的调节有关。
