The aims of this project are to trace the early development of attentional self-regulation and its relation to the learning of expectations and the control of emotion. We use the method of marker tasks identified in adult patients or by neural imaging methods in order to relate our behavioral findings to underlying neural systems. In the proposed research, experimental methods and correlational analysis are used to address two major issues. The first is the control of expectations. The three to four month period appears to be critical for the maturation of the posterior attention system and thus for expectations regarding the location of objects. Prior to 3 months, infants search for objects as if in a crowded field; after 4 months they move directly to them. We hypothesize that the development of the ability to program an eye movement to an object is an important condition for being able to represent that object in its absence. Programming of eye movement can be assessed by the occurrence of eye movements directly to the target and by the consequent inhibition of the target location. Representation in absence can be studied by anticipatory eye movements to a location indicated by a central cue. Together we believe they index the maturation of the posterior attention system. We propose to study developmental aspects of the relationship between these two skills. We will further relate anticipatory eye movements to the ability of the infant to choose between paired locations based upon the cue (contingency learning). Our prior data suggest independence between these two forms of expectation, and the latter may mark the beginning of the infant's ability to use the anterior attention system to generalize their learning. The second issue involves how the development of the attention system influences emotional regulation. We relate the capacity to disengage attention from a visual focus (between 3 and 4 months of age) to a tendency toward negative emotionality, as reported by parents. We will induce distress by the presentation of checkerboards and observe the relationship of the ability to disengage with the time to soothe. Finally, we will explore the hypothesis that reduced alertness relates to a left turning bias previously found in infants. We believe that deficits in the underlying neural system involved in alertness could be related to developmental disorders of childhood.
| Evans, David E; Rothbart, Mary K (2009) A Two-Factor Model of Temperament. Pers Individ Dif 47:565-570 |
