Department of Psychology, California Polytechnic Institute Humboldt, Arcata, CA, United States of America.
Department of Psychology, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Mar 27;19(3):e0300673. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300673. eCollection 2024.
Infant faces readily capture adult attention and elicit enhanced neural processing, likely due to their importance evolutionarily in facilitating bonds with caregivers. Facial malformations have been shown to impact early infant-caregiver interactions negatively. However, it remains unclear how such facial malformations may impact early visual processing. The current study used a combination of eye tracking and electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate adults' early visual processing of infant faces with cleft lip/palate as compared to normal infant faces, as well as the impact cleft palate has on perceived cuteness. The results demonstrated a significant decrease in early visual attention to the eye region for infants with cleft palate, while increased visual attention is registered on the mouth region. Increased neural processing of the cleft palate was evident at the N170 and LPP, suggesting differences in configural processing and affective responses to the faces. Infants with cleft palate were also rated significantly less cute than their healthy counterparts (mean difference = .73, p < .001). These results suggest that infants' faces with cleft lip/palate are processed differently at early visual perception. These processing differences may contribute to several important aspects of development (e.g., joint attention) and may play a vital role in the previously observed difficulties in mother-infant interactions.
婴儿的面孔容易吸引成人的注意力，并引起更强的神经处理，这可能是因为它们在促进与照顾者的联系方面具有进化上的重要性。面部畸形已被证明会对婴儿与照顾者的早期互动产生负面影响。然而，目前尚不清楚这种面部畸形如何影响早期的视觉处理。本研究结合眼动追踪和脑电图（EEG）技术，比较了唇腭裂婴儿和正常婴儿的面孔，以及腭裂对面部可爱程度的影响，来研究成人对婴儿面孔的早期视觉处理。结果表明，唇腭裂婴儿的眼睛区域的早期视觉注意力显著下降，而嘴巴区域的视觉注意力增加。N170 和 LPP 上的神经处理增加，表明对面孔的结构处理和情感反应存在差异。腭裂婴儿的可爱程度也明显低于健康婴儿（平均差异=.73，p <.001）。这些结果表明，唇腭裂婴儿的面孔在早期视觉感知中被处理的方式不同。这些处理差异可能会影响到发展的几个重要方面（例如，共同注意），并可能在之前观察到的母婴互动困难中发挥重要作用。
