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. 2009 Jun;4(2):134-42.
doi: 10.1093/scan/nsn046. Epub 2009 Jan 27.

Emergence of enhanced attention to fearful faces between 5 and 7 months of age

Mikko J Peltola  1 , Jukka M Leppänen, Silja Mäki, Jari K Hietanen
Affiliations

Emergence of enhanced attention to fearful faces between 5 and 7 months of age

Mikko J Peltola et al. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2009 Jun.

Abstract

The adult brain is endowed with mechanisms subserving enhanced processing of salient emotional and social cues. Stimuli associated with threat represent one such class of cues. Previous research suggests that preferential allocation of attention to social signals of threat (i.e. a preference for fearful over happy facial expressions) emerges during the second half of the first year. The present study was designed to determine the age of onset for infants' attentional bias for fearful faces. Allocation of attention was studied by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) and looking times (in a visual paired comparison task) to fearful and happy faces in 5- and 7-month-old infants. In 7-month-olds, the preferential allocation of attention to fearful faces was evident in both ERPs and looking times, i.e. the negative central mid-latency ERP amplitudes were more negative, and the looking times were longer for fearful than happy faces. No such differences were observed in the 5-month-olds. It is suggested that an enhanced sensitivity to facial signals of threat emerges between 5 and 7 months of age, and it may reflect functional development of the neural mechanisms involved in processing of emotionally significant stimuli.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Grand average ERP waveforms for fearful and happy faces over the left (F3, FC3, C3), central (Fz, FCz, Cz) and right (F4, FC4, C4) frontocentral region for the 5-month-old infants.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Grand average ERP waveforms for fearful and happy faces over the left (F3, FC3, C3), central (Fz, FCz, Cz) and right (F4, FC4, C4) frontocentral region for the 7-month-old infants.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Average looking times for fearful and happy faces in 5- and 7-month-old infants in the VPC task.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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