Department of Early Childhood Education and Care, Faculty of Education, Musashino University, 1-1-20 Shin-Machi, Nishitokyo-Shi, Tokyo, 202-8585, Japan.
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 3-8-1 Komaba, Meguro-Ku, Tokyo, 153-8902, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2023 Jun 19;13(1):9520. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-35851-9.
Interoception, that is, the perception of visceral stimuli, is the basis of socio-emotional development. However, no studies have demonstrated the relationship between the two in infants. This study aimed to elucidate the relationship between interoception and social behavior in infants and mothers. Visual preference for cardio-visual synchronous and asynchronous stimuli was assessed using a preferential-looking paradigm in 6-month infants and their mothers. The infant-mother interaction was also measured to assess social behavior, such as eye contact and positive facial expressions. The results showed that infants looked at asynchronous cardio-visual stimuli longer than synchronous cardio-visual stimuli, whereas mothers looked at synchronous cardio-visual stimuli longer than asynchronous cardio-visual stimuli. The proportion of looking time toward asynchronous cardio-visual stimuli in infants was positively correlated with infant-mother gaze and affect (positive facial expression) synchrony. Furthermore, mediation analyses showed that the relationship between infants' interoception and eye contact behavior is attributable to mother's positive facial expression. Our findings suggest that in infant-mother interactions, infants' interoception may play a role in eye contact behavior through the mother's positive facial expression, highlighting the importance of infants' interoception on social cognitive development.
内感受，即内脏刺激的感知，是社会情感发展的基础。然而，目前还没有研究表明婴儿的内感受和社会行为之间存在关系。本研究旨在阐明婴儿和母亲的内感受与社会行为之间的关系。使用偏好注视范式评估 6 个月大婴儿及其母亲对心脏视觉同步和异步刺激的视觉偏好。还测量了母婴互动，以评估社会行为，如眼神接触和积极的面部表情。结果表明，婴儿注视异步心脏视觉刺激的时间长于同步心脏视觉刺激，而母亲注视同步心脏视觉刺激的时间长于异步心脏视觉刺激。婴儿对异步心脏视觉刺激的注视时间比例与婴儿-母亲的注视和情感（积极的面部表情）同步呈正相关。此外，中介分析表明，婴儿内感受与眼神接触行为之间的关系归因于母亲的积极面部表情。我们的研究结果表明，在母婴互动中，婴儿的内感受可能通过母亲的积极面部表情在眼神接触行为中发挥作用，突出了婴儿内感受对社会认知发展的重要性。
