Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, MOE-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children's Environmental Health, 1678 Dong Fang Road, Shanghai, 200127, China.
Department of Psychology, Sleep Research Clinic and Laboratory, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR.
Sci Rep. 2018 Feb 16;8(1):3200. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-21448-0.
Sleep and circadian rhythmicity both play an important role in human's cognitive functioning, yet the way in which early development of sleep and circadian rhythm affects cognitive processes and social learning in infants remains less understood. We examined the association of sleep and circadian activity rhythm (CAR) with face and emotional information processing in 12-month old infants. Face processing was measured by eye tracking, whereby infants' scanning patterns and pupil dilations were calculated when they were presented with neutral, pleasant and unpleasant faces. Infants with better sleep quality (i.e., less waking after sleep onset) and lower sleep-wake pattern variability (i.e., higher inter-daily stability) exhibited a higher eyes over mouth fixation ratio (EMR). Infants with longer total sleep time showed larger pupil diameter changes in response to emotional facial expressions, more closely resembling the responses of adults. Our findings suggest the role of sleep and circadian rhythm in waking cognition and have implications for understanding the early development of social learning in young children.
睡眠和昼夜节律在人类认知功能中都起着重要作用，但早期睡眠和昼夜节律的发展如何影响婴儿的认知过程和社会学习仍不太清楚。我们研究了 12 个月大的婴儿的睡眠和昼夜活动节律（CAR）与面部和情绪信息处理之间的关系。通过眼动追踪来测量面部处理，当婴儿看到中性、愉快和不愉快的面孔时，计算他们的扫描模式和瞳孔扩张。睡眠质量较好（即入睡后醒来的次数较少）和睡眠-觉醒模式变异性较低（即日间稳定性较高）的婴儿表现出更高的眼睛到嘴巴固定比率（EMR）。总睡眠时间较长的婴儿在对情绪面部表情的反应中表现出更大的瞳孔直径变化，更类似于成年人的反应。我们的研究结果表明睡眠和昼夜节律在清醒认知中的作用，并对理解幼儿社会学习的早期发展具有启示意义。
