The objectives are to study the development of sustained attention in young infants and to relate development in sustained attention to concurrent heart rate (HR) changes.
The specific aims are: 1) To study sustained, subject-controlled attention in infants from 8 to 26 weeks of age, and to study the control of saccadic eye movements during heart-rate-defined attention phases, in order to infer the neurodevelopmental systems controlling attention-directed eye movements; 2) To study the cortical basis of planned eye movements in young infants with high-density EEG and ERP, and to study the effect of attention on infant saccade planning; 3) To study the development of attention in infants and young preschool children during extended television viewing and to further extend the study of sustained attention. This research examines the patterns of attention found in normal children, relating those attention patterns to physiological processes (HR. EEG), and may provide a """"""""model preparation"""""""" for the study of children with irregular patterns of attention. Experiment 1 will examine the characteristics of the """"""""main sequence"""""""" in eye movements in the early parts of this age range (8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26 weeks) and will examine the effect of attention on the main sequence. Experiments 2 and 3 will examine infant planned eye movements under the influence of HR-defined attention phases. Experiment 2 will examine covert shifts of attention to peripheral stimuli in infants at 8, 14, and 20 weeks of age. This study will use """"""""high-density"""""""" EEG recording to infer cortical sources of attention-directed eye movement control. Experiment 3 will use the """"""""visual expectation procedure"""""""" to induce anticipatory eye movements in young infants (8, 14, 20 weeks) while recording high-density EEG to examine the role of the cortex in infant planned saccades. Experiment 4 will extend the study of HR-defined attention phases to extended television viewing in older infants and the early preschool years (6 months to 2 years). It is predicted that 1) age changes in sustained attention will interact with development changes in eye movements to affect attention-directed eye movements; 2) emerging technologies for inferring cortical activity using high-density EEG recording should reveal the cortical sources involved in the control of infant planned saccades; 3) sustained attention will be closely related to patterns of extended television viewing in the early preschool years (up to age 2 years).

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD018942-19
Application #
6851794
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-4 (01))
Program Officer
Freund, Lisa S
Project Start
1988-08-01
Project End
2007-02-28
Budget Start
2005-03-01
Budget End
2006-02-28
Support Year
19
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$260,100
Indirect Cost
Name
University of South Carolina at Columbia
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
111310249
City
Columbia
State
SC
Country
United States
Zip Code
29208
Xie, Wanze; Mallin, Brittany M; Richards, John E (2018) Development of infant sustained attention and its relation to EEG oscillations: an EEG and cortical source analysis study. Dev Sci 21:e12562
Guy, Maggie W; Richards, John E; Tonnsen, Bridgette L et al. (2018) Neural correlates of face processing in etiologically-distinct 12-month-old infants at high-risk of autism spectrum disorder. Dev Cogn Neurosci 29:61-71
Buzzell, George A; Richards, John E; White, Lauren K et al. (2017) Development of the error-monitoring system from ages 9-35: Unique insight provided by MRI-constrained source localization of EEG. Neuroimage 157:13-26
Reynolds, Greg D; Richards, John E (2017) Infant Visual Attention and Stimulus Repetition Effects on Object Recognition. Child Dev :
Emberson, Lauren L; Crosswhite, Stephen L; Richards, John E et al. (2017) The Lateral Occipital Cortex Is Selective for Object Shape, Not Texture/Color, at Six Months. J Neurosci 37:3698-3703
Xie, Wanze; Richards, John E (2017) The Relation between Infant Covert Orienting, Sustained Attention and Brain Activity. Brain Topogr 30:198-219
Richards, John E; Sanchez, Carmen; Phillips-Meek, Michelle et al. (2016) A database of age-appropriate average MRI templates. Neuroimage 124:1254-9
Fillmore, Paul T; Richards, John E; Phillips-Meek, Michelle C et al. (2015) Stereotaxic Magnetic Resonance Imaging Brain Atlases for Infants from 3 to 12 Months. Dev Neurosci 37:515-32
Richards, John E; Reynolds, Greg D; Courage, Mary L (2010) The Neural Bases of Infant Attention. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 19:41-46
Richards, John E (2010) The development of attention to simple and complex visual stimuli in infants: Behavioral and psychophysiological measures. Dev Rev 30:203-219

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