University of Virginia.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2024 Jun 1;36(7):1341-1349. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_02165.
The current longitudinal study (n = 98) utilized a developmental cognitive neuroscience approach to examine whether and how variability in social perception is linked to social behavior in early human development. Cortical responses to processing dynamic faces were investigated using functional near-infrared spectroscopy at 7 months. Individual differences in sociability were measured using the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire at 18 months. Confirming previous work with infants and adults, functional near-infrared spectroscopy results show that viewing changing faces recruited superior temporal cortices in 7-month-old infants, adding to the view that this brain system is specialized in social perception from early in ontogeny. Our longitudinal results show that greater engagement of the right superior temporal cortex at 7 months predicts higher levels of sociability at 18 months. This suggests that early variability in social perception is linked to later differences in overtly displayed social behavior, providing novel longitudinal evidence for a social brain-behavior association.
本纵向研究（n=98）采用发展认知神经科学方法，考察了社会知觉的变异性是否以及如何与人类早期发展中的社会行为相关。在 7 个月大时，使用功能近红外光谱技术研究了处理动态面部的皮质反应。在 18 个月大时，使用幼儿行为问卷测量社交能力的个体差异。证实了之前对婴儿和成人的研究，功能近红外光谱结果表明，观看变化的面孔会激活 7 个月大婴儿的颞上皮质，进一步证明这个大脑系统从生命早期就专门用于社会知觉。我们的纵向研究结果表明，7 个月时右颞上皮质的参与度越高，18 个月时的社交能力越高。这表明，社会知觉的早期变异性与后来明显的社会行为差异有关，为社会大脑-行为关联提供了新的纵向证据。
