BabyDevLab, University of East London, UK.
Kings College London, UK.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2023 Oct;63:101289. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101289. Epub 2023 Aug 9.
The differential sensitivity hypothesis argues that environmental sensitivity has the bivalent effect of predisposing individuals to both the risk-inducing and development-enhancing influences of early social environments. However, the hypothesis requires that this variation in environmental sensitivity be general across domains. In this study, we focused on neural sensitivity and autonomic arousal to test domain generality. Neural sensitivity can be assessed by correlating measures of perceptual sensitivity, as indexed by event-related potentials (ERP) in electrophysiology. The sensitivity of autonomic arousal can be tested via heart rate changes. Domain generality was tested by comparing associations in perceptual sensitivity across auditory and visual domains, and associations between sensitivity in sensory domains and heart rate. We contrasted ERP components in auditory (P3) and visual (P1, N290 and P4) detection-of-difference tasks for N = 68 infants longitudinally at 6 and 12 months of age. Domain generality should produce correlated individual differences in sensitivity across the two modalities, with higher levels of autonomic arousal associating with increased perceptual sensitivity. Having controlled for multiple comparisons, at 6 months of age, the difference in amplitude of the P3 component evoked in response to standard and deviant tones correlated with the difference in amplitude of the P1 N290 and P4 face-sensitive components evoked in response to fearful and neutral faces. However, this correlation was not found at 12 months of age. Similarly, autonomic arousal correlated with neural sensitivity at 6 months but not at 12 months. The results suggest bottom-up neural perceptual sensitivity is domain-general across auditory and visual domains and is related to autonomic arousal at 6 months but not at 12 months of age. We interpret the development of the association of these markers of ES within a neuroconstructivist framework and with respect to the concept of interactive specialisation. By 12 months of age, more experience of visual processing may have led to top-down endogenous attention mechanisms that process visual information in a way that no longer associates with automatic auditory perceptual sensitivity.
差异敏感性假说认为，环境敏感性具有双重作用，既使个体易受早期社会环境的风险诱导影响，又使个体易受早期社会环境的促进发展影响。然而，该假说要求这种环境敏感性的变化在各个领域都是普遍存在的。在这项研究中，我们专注于神经敏感性和自主唤醒，以测试领域的通用性。神经敏感性可以通过相关的感知敏感性测量来评估，这可以通过事件相关电位（ERP）在电生理学中的指标来进行。自主唤醒的敏感性可以通过心率变化来测试。通过比较听觉和视觉领域感知敏感性的相关性，以及感官领域敏感性与心率之间的相关性，来测试领域通用性。我们对比了 N=68 名婴儿在 6 个月和 12 个月时进行的听觉（P3）和视觉（P1、N290 和 P4）差异检测任务中的 ERP 成分。领域通用性应该会产生两种模态之间敏感性的相关个体差异，更高水平的自主唤醒与更高的感知敏感性相关。在控制了多次比较后，在 6 个月时，对标准和偏差音的 P3 成分的振幅差异与对恐惧和中性面孔的 P1 N290 和 P4 面孔敏感成分的振幅差异相关。然而，在 12 个月时，这种相关性并不存在。同样，自主唤醒与 6 个月时的神经敏感性相关，但与 12 个月时的神经敏感性无关。结果表明，自下而上的神经感知敏感性在听觉和视觉领域是普遍存在的，并且与 6 个月时的自主唤醒相关，但与 12 个月时的自主唤醒无关。我们根据神经建构主义框架和互动专业化的概念来解释这些 ES 标志物之间关联的发展。到 12 个月时，更多的视觉处理经验可能导致了自上而下的内源性注意机制，这些机制以一种不再与自动听觉感知敏感性相关的方式处理视觉信息。
