Emotion regulation in infants using maternal singing and speech

Although emotional responses are theorized to be important in the development of empathy, findings regarding the prediction of early empathic behavior by infant behavioral and physiological responses are mixed. This study examined whether behavioral and physiological responses to mild emotional challenge (still face paradigm and car seat task) in 118 infants at age 6 months predicted empathic distress and empathic concern in response to an empathy‐evoking task (i.e, experimenter's distress simulation) at age 20 months. Correlation analyses, corrected for sex and baseline levels of physiological arousal, showed that stronger physiological and behavioral responses to emotional challenge at age 6 months were positively related to observed empathic distress, but not empathic concern, at age 20 months. Linear regression analyses indicated that physiological and behavioral responses to challenge at 6 months independently predicted empathic distress at 20 months, which suggests an important role for both physiological and behavioral emotional responses in empathy development. In addition, curvilinear regression analyses showed quadratic associations between behavioral responses at 6 months, and empathic distress and empathic concern at 20 months, which indicates that moderate levels of behavioral responsivity predict the highest levels of empathic distress and empathic concern.

The author reports on a series of integrated studies on melodic contours in infant‐directed (ID) speech. ID melodies in speech are taken as an instructive example of intuitive parenting in order to review current evidence on its forms, functions and determinants. The forms and functions of melodic prototypes are compared in terms of universal properties and individual and/or cultural variability across samples of German, Chinese and American mothers, and German mothers and fathers with their 2‐ and 3‐month‐old infants. Microanalyses of interactional contexts show that forms and functions of ID melodies are intimately related to typical dimensions of intuitive caregiving–arousing/soothing, turnyielding/turn‐closing, approving/disapproving. The communicative functions of ID melodies as both categorical and graded signals are discussed with respect to the current knowledge on infant responses to ID speech and on early speech perception. According to a comprehensive longitudinal study of ID speech in relation to stages of infant vocalization, ID speech results from fine‐tuned adjustments in various prosodic and linguistic features to developmental changes in infants' perceptual and vocal competence. ID melodies evidently have the potential to draw infant attention to caregivers' speech, to regulate arousal and affect in infants, to provide models for imitation, to guide infants in practising communicative subroutines and to mediate linguistic information. Current evidence suggests that the melodies in caregivers' speech provide a species‐specific guidance towards language acquisition.

Background : The aim of the study was to determine the effect of moderating noise pollution on premature infants' behavioral and physiological responses in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Methods: 110 premature infants hospitalized in the NICU ward of hospitals in Tehran were selected. All the infants who met the research criteria were allocated and assigned to the experimental and control group (n = 55). The sampling method was non-probability and convenient. In the first section of time, each infant with inclusion criteria, inserted in the control group and then in the second section of time, infant with inclusion criteria placed in the experiment group. In the first section, the educated nurse measured the L Aeq , LC, LA, infants’ behavioral responses, and physiological responses. In the second section, noise modifying interventions were implemented in the experimental group for 6 weeks, and then L Aeq , LC, LA, infants’ behavioral responses and physiological responses were measured with the same methods. Results : Infants' heart rate in the experimental group was significantly lower than the control group (Pvalue<0.05), and atrial blood O 2 Saturation was significantly higher than the control group (Pvalue<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the mean number of crying, sleeping, and Moro reflex of premature infants in the two groups. Also, the sound-pressure level in the C-weighted network in the experimental group was lower than the control group (Pvalue=0.021). The sound-pressure level of the C-weighted network was obtained in the same way (Pvalue=0.008). Conclusions: Based on the results, moderating noise pollution in NICU can lead to heart rate deceleration and atrial blood O 2 Saturation acceleration in premature infants. Keywords: Noise pollution, Premature infants, Behavioral responses, Physiological responses, Neonatal Intensive care unit.

Simple SummaryA suitable environment for dairy cows has become increasingly important, especially in the summer in tropical countries. Excess heat increases body, hormonal, reproductive responses, and behavioral temperature, and may in extreme cases lead to death. This research shows the importance of using systems that can reduce the heat stress of dairy cattle raised on pasture. In this study, climatic parameters of the thermal state of the environment during the period, and the physiological, behavioral, and preferential responses of Holstein and Jersey cows and heifers on pasture were evaluated. The results showed that dairy cows preferred to use sprinklers or showers over artificial shade under ambient conditions, especially lactating and Holstein cows versus pubertal heifers because they are more thermosensitive. These systems are more efficient in dissipating heat by evaporation, improving the welfare of the animals, especially those raised on pasture.High ambient temperatures and relative humidity affect the behavior and physiology of the animal. This study investigated the influence of different heat-stress-reducing systems on the physiological, behavioral, and preferential responses of Holstein and Jersey cows and heifers on pasture. Experimental treatments were: (1) three heat-stress-reducing systems (sprinklers + artificial shade; showers + artificial shade; and artificial shade); (2) two breeds (Holstein and Jersey); and (3) two physiological stages (lactating cows and pubertal heifers). Physiological and behavioral responses to treatments were measured every 30 min on collection days. The frequency and duration of the use of the systems were recorded continuously 24 h/day for 3 days in each period. The air temperature and the relative humidity were 26 ± 4.1 °C and 74 ± 11.3%, respectively. The experimental treatments affected (p = 0.0354) standing idle, grazing behavior (p = 0.0435), and the frequency and duration of use of the systems by the animals (p < 0.0001). For all treatments, the respiratory rate and the coat surface temperature were highly and significantly correlated (p < 0.05) with the temperature and humidity index. In conclusion, under ambient conditions, dairy cows preferred using sprinklers or showers over artificial shade. These systems were more efficient at reducing the heat load and led to better behavioral and physiological responses.

The purpose of this study was to examine 32 mothers' sensitivity to social contingency during face‐to‐face interaction with their two‐ to four‐month‐old infants in a closed circuit TV set‐up. Prosodic qualities and vocal sounds in mother's infant‐directed (ID) speech during sequences of live interaction were compared to sequences where expressive behaviours were decoupled by presenting either the mothers (Replay 2) or the infants (Replay 1) with a replay record of the partners' former behaviour in a Live 1–Replay 1–Live 2–Replay 2–Live 3 design. Overall, the mothers produced significantly higher amount of ID speech during the live sequences. Compared to the Live 1 sequence, there was a significant reduction in mothers' ID speech during both replay sequences. However, the mothers only recovered ID speech after the Replay 2 sequence, not after the Replay 1. These findings suggest that the emotions signalled by the mothers' ID speech is affected by the contingency of the infant responses.

Only ten or fifteen years ago it was thought possible to study language acquisition without studying the language addressed to children. All the research done before the late 1960s on the nature of linguistic input to children was carried out by linguists and anthropologists studying ‘baby talk’. They collected data on the special lexicon used with babies, and several noted that the baby talk words could be analysed as simplified forms of adult words (reviewed in Ferguson 1977). They also noted the characteristic prosodic features of baby talk – high pitch and exaggerated intonation contours (e.g. Blount and Padgug 1977). This research on baby talk was done primarily with the purpose of describing a certain speech register, not with any specific interest in the relevance of baby talk to language acquisition (though several papers noted that the informants justified using baby talk with a didactic motive, ‘to make the language easier to learn’). Much more recently the nature of the speech addressed to children has been studied by psychologists and linguists interested in language acquisition. They have concentrated on syntactic and semantic rather than lexical or phonological aspects of that speech, and have tended not to use the term ‘baby talk’ to refer to their object of study. Other terms have been coined, such as ‘motherese’, which gives the misleading impression that only mothers talk in a special way to children.

Emotion is a multifaceted construct comprised of cognitive, physiological and behavioural elements. In the neuroscience of emotion, central (neural) and peripheral (physiological) responses are often studied. The objective characterisation of both these processes separately and concomitantly, is thus a crucial step towards elucidating the neuro-biological underpinnings of emotions.Studying these processes requires induction of an emotional state through appropriate stimuli, classically achieved by presentation of emotionally expressive faces. However, the push for ecological validity in the past few decades has led to development of naturalistic paradigms to induce complex emotional states. These novel stimuli have been employed to capture neuronal and psycho-physiological processes with fMRI, EEG/MEG, PET and heart rate, skin conductance respectively, and which have accordingly yielded fundamental insights into our understanding of the “emotional brain”. However, alternative techniques may add valuable new knowledge whilst also providing further validation and convergence of existing evidence.Employing novel experimental paradigms which emphasize the use of naturalistic stimuli, and using unique data acquisition tools of thermal imaging and intracranial EEG, this thesis addresses the dynamics underlying the neural and peripheral responses underlying emotional states. The thesis comprises seven chapters reporting four experimental studies and a narrative review. In Chapter 1 I first introduce the core research question I address in the context of emotion. In doing so, I introduce the stimuli to evoke emotions in the laboratory setting, the physiological measures to study these and the neuroimaging techniques to probe corresponding brain responses. I then present a brief conceptual description of the analytical methods used in neuroscience and which I have employed subsequently in this thesis.In Chapter 2 I critically review use of naturalistic stimuli in neuroscience. Naturalistic paradigms are an alternative to strict laboratory-controlled stimuli sets of picture and sounds which are strong in simplicity but arguably fall short on ecological validity. Naturalistic paradigms offer greater contextualization of emotions than standard, briefly presented static stimuli. I also describe the methodological developments that the use of naturalistic stimuli has required to build on initial reports. I conclude this chapter with the promise of naturalistic stimuli to provide translational benefits.I follow this with 2 chapters with experimental studies focussed on the physiological responses induced by emotional stimuli. These studies highlight the use of thermal imaging to quantify temperature fluctuations of the faces of participants as a contact-free alternative to the traditional measures of skin conductance and heart rate. Specifically, Chapter 3 provides a validation of a new region of interest (ROI) based facial thermal imaging extraction method based on deep learning algorithms. I validate this method by using an acoustic startle probe showing a decrease in temperature in nose and cheeks replicating previously reported findings. Such ROI based method is hoped to make thermal imaging easier to use for wide application in psychophysiological research.In Chapter 4 I used a naturalistic stimulus to induce dynamic affective states. Here, I quantify physiological correlates (thermal, GSR and heart rate metrics) of the emotional responses. I demonstrate a synchrony in physiological responses of participants and thus by extension their emotional state. I also demonstrate the ability of thermal responses to vary according to emotional states encouraging its uses in emotional state identification. On top of these results, facial thermal responses are quantified by an innovative method of spatial independent component analysis. This method consistently captures a few regions of the face (nose, cheeks, and philtrum) and supersedes ROI based approach as an unbiased data driven method.Moving on from the physiological responses, in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, I investigate the brain responses underlying emotional processing using a unique and rare neuroimaging technique of stereo-electroencephalography. Performed in clinical contexts, it overcomes the major short comings of EEG and fMRI of poor spatial and temporal resolution respectively when investigating a few brain regions. I use this technique to elucidate the dynamics of the temporal pole (TP) and the amygdala activity underlying emotional processing. Specifically in Chapter 5 I use an affective picture paradigm and in Chapter 6 I use naturalistic stimuli of emotional music and movies. Employing comprehensive hierarchical analyses; probing localised responses, functional connectivity and effective connectivity, I demonstrate that the TP exerts a modulatory influence on the amygdala activity according to valence of emotionally salient stimuli irrespective of the modality of stimuli. The TP function has often been inconsistently reported in literature and these results provide crucial evidence for TP’s vital role in emotional processing.Finally in Chapter 7 I summarise the overall contributions of this thesis, namely; the development of two new novel complementary facial thermal analysis methods; thermal imaging as a contactless tool to capture physiological changes potentially useful in emotional state identification; and the TP’s modulatory influence on amygdala activity according to valence of emotional stimuli emphasizing a vital role of TP in emotion processing via its role as conceptual store.

2 experiments examined behavioral preferences for infant-directed (ID) speech over adult-directed (AD) speech in young infants. Using a modification of the visual-fixation-based auditory-preference procedure, Experiments 1 and 2 examined whether 12 1-month-old and 16 2-day-old infants looked longer at a visual stimulus when looking produced ID as opposed to AD speech. The results showed that both 1-month-olds and newborns preferred ID over AD speech. Although the absolute magnitude of the ID speech preference was significantly greater, with the older infants showing longer looking durations than the younger infants, subsequent analyses showed no significant difference in the relative magnitude of this effect. Differences in overall looking times between the 2 groups apparently reflect task variables rather than differences in speech processing. These results suggest that infants' preference for the exaggerated prosodic features of ID speech is present from birth and may not depend on any specific postnatal experience. However, the possible role of prenatal auditory experience with speech is considered.

Behavioral and physiological responses to stress are affected by high-fat feeding in male rats

Is responsiveness to multimodal, infant-directed talk affected by CNS damage and exposure to cocaine?

Simple SummaryStudents in agricultural programs have the opportunity to interact with animals during different teaching activities. However, students’ interactions with livestock may be distressing to the animals and can affect the students’ and animals’ safety. We investigate whether two human-animal habituation strategies, one with positive tactile stimulation and one without, would improve behavioral and physiological responses of beef heifers during a livestock handling class. Overall, heifers that received a habituation treatment had more positive behavior responses, and decreased physiological stress responses in comparison to heifers that were not exposed to habituation. Furthermore, the heifers exposed to the habituation with a positive tactile stimulation had the greatest improvements in behavior in comparison to control and non-stimulated heifers, exhibiting more positive behaviors when interacting with humans. Strategies to habituate cattle to human interaction with positive stimulation aligned with training humans that handle and interact with cattle on best practices and cattle behavior can improve behavior, reduce stress-related physiological responses and enhance safety for both humans and animals.Our objective was to determine the impact of different habituation protocols on beef cattle behavior, physiology, and temperament in response to human handling. Beef heifers were exposed to three habituation strategies: (1) tactile stimulation (brushing) in the working chute for seven consecutive days (STI; n = 18); (2) passage through the working chute for seven consecutive days (CHU; n = 19) and; (3) no habituation (CON; n = 19). Individual heifer respiratory rate (RR; n/min), internal vaginal temperature (VAGT; °C), and blood cortisol were measured. Further, behavior parameters were observed to generate a behavior score, and heifer interaction with students and their behavioral responses were recorded. Habituation with STI and CHU resulted in improved numerical behavioral scores compared to CON, and greater (p ≤ 0.05) handling latencies. Vaginal temperature was decreased in STI compared to CHU and CONT (p ≤ 0.05). Cortisol concentration did not differ among treatments, but decreased (p ≤ 0.05) from the start of the experiment to 14 days after treatment initiation. Both habituation protocols showed benefits, but heifers that received the positive tactile stimulation in the chute had the greatest behavior improvements. Furthermore, these heifers responded more calmly during student-animal interactions in class, which is beneficial for the students’ and animals’ safety.

Several studies have found that human infants recognize the sight, sound, smell, and touch of their mothers. Maternal recognition occurs early in development, often being influenced by prenatal experiences. In contrast, the development of infants' recognition of their fathers is not understood. We investigated whether 4-month-old human infants preferrred their fathers' voices, in two different speaking contexts. In both Experiments 1 and 2, infants were tested with fathers' adult-directed (AD) or infant-directed (ID) speech. In all experiments, infants were allowed to listen to recordings of either father's or other's voice contingent on their visual attention. Results from the first two experiments showed that infants did not prefer their fathers' voices over unfamiliar male voices. However, in Experiment 3, 4-month-olds showed that they could discriminate the male voices heard in the previous studies. These data were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that the experiences necessary for the development of maternal preferences are different from those supporting paternal preferences, and that perhaps multimodal cues are necessary for father recognition in infancy. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 35: 49–59, 1999

ABSTRACTMost studies on child language acquisition occur in the minority world (countries which make up the minority of the world's population). Their findings are not generalizable to majority‐world contexts, where the majority of the world's population lives. The limited research in the latter contexts reveals the presence of differing child language socialization practices, not generalizable across Global South contexts, and that socio‐economic status (SES) and geographic location (rural/urban) can affect these practices. This study examined the language input to 5‐month‐olds in a low‐SES, Afrikaans‐speaking community in South Africa. Half of the 10 participating households were urban‐situated and half rural‐situated. Each home had a 1‐h video recording of household members interacting naturally with and around the infant; these recordings were transcribed and coded in ELAN. The amount of child‐directed speech (CDS) and number of (a) different utterance types, and (b) instances of contingent speech were determined. CDS comprised 76% of all utterances. Although there were no significant differences between urban and rural households when all CDS was considered collectively, more questions were directed at rural than urban infants, and more instances of speaking on behalf of the child occurred in the case of rural infants: in each recording, caregivers used “typical” CDS features (higher pitch, repetition, etc.) to speak in the first person but on behalf of infants, an infrequently reported phenomenon in CDS research. The types and number of utterances and the amount of CDS used did not pattern as reported by scholars for other low‐SES, majority‐world communities.

Behavioral and cardiac responses by dogs to physical human–dog contact

Several studies have recently suggested that an abnormal processing of respiratory interoceptive and nociceptive (painful) stimuli may contribute to eating disorder (ED) pathophysiology. Mood and anxiety disorders (MA) are also characterized by abnormal respiratory symptoms, and show substantial comorbidity with ED. However, no studies have examined both respiratory and pain processing simultaneously within ED and MA. The present study systematically evaluated responses to perturbations of respiratory and nociceptive signals across the levels of physiology, behavior, and symptom report in a transdiagnostic ED sample (n = 51) that was individually matched to MA individuals (n = 51) and healthy comparisons (HC; n = 51). Participants underwent an inspiratory breath-holding challenge as a probe of respiratory interoception and a cold pressor challenge as a probe of pain processing. We expected both clinical groups to report greater stress and fear in response to respiratory and nociceptive perturbation than HCs, in the absence of differential physiological and behavioral responses. During breath-holding, both the ED and MA groups reported significantly more stress, feelings of suffocation, and suffocation fear than HC, with the ED group reporting the most severe symptoms. Moreover, anxiety sensitivity was related to suffocation fear only in the ED group. The heightened affective responses in the current study occurred in the absence of group differences in behavioral (breath hold duration, cold pressor duration) and physiological (end-tidal carbon dioxide, end-tidal oxygen, heart rate, skin conductance) responses. Against our expectations, there were no group differences in the response to cold pain stimulation. A matched-subgroup analysis focusing on individuals with anorexia nervosa (n = 30) produced similar results. These findings underscore the presence of abnormal respiratory interoception in MA and suggest that hyperreactivity to respiratory signals may be a potentially overlooked clinical feature of ED.