Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan.
Dev Psychobiol. 2020 Sep;62(6):829-840. doi: 10.1002/dev.21961. Epub 2020 Feb 24.
Infants communicate their emotions to their caregivers through cries and laughter. Recent work suggests that adaptive parenting requires cognitive regulation of intuitive behaviors toward infants' signals. In this study, we examined the effects of cognitive regulation on mothers' unconscious behavioral and cardiac responses to infant cries and laughs. In all, 55 mothers took part in this study. To manipulate cognitive load, mothers were asked to memorize alphabet characters (two letters in the low cognitive load condition and eight in the high cognitive load condition). Then, they heard infant vocalizations (cries or laughs) for 6 s. During this time, we measured mothers' behavioral (center of pressure, an index of approach-avoidance behavior) and physiological (heart rate) responses. Regardless of vocalization type (infant cries or laughs), high cognitive load increased mothers' forward movement toward the infant sounds as well as mothers' heart rate. These findings advance our understanding of the link between executive function and maternal response to infant signals by utilizing postural and physiological measures of maternal response during memory tasks that require cognitive resources.
婴儿通过哭泣和笑声向照顾者传达情绪。最近的研究表明，适应性育儿需要对婴儿信号的本能行为进行认知调节。在这项研究中，我们研究了认知调节对母亲无意识的行为和心脏对婴儿哭声和笑声反应的影响。共有 55 位母亲参与了这项研究。为了操纵认知负荷，母亲们被要求记住字母字符（低认知负荷条件下两个字母，高认知负荷条件下八个字母）。然后，她们听了 6 秒的婴儿发声（哭声或笑声）。在此期间，我们测量了母亲的行为（压力中心，接近回避行为的指标）和生理（心率）反应。无论发声类型（婴儿哭声或笑声）如何，高认知负荷都会增加母亲向婴儿声音前进的动作以及母亲的心率。这些发现通过利用需要认知资源的记忆任务中母亲反应的姿势和生理测量，推进了我们对执行功能与母亲对婴儿信号反应之间联系的理解。
