Sit Up Straight and Focus: The Relationship Between Infants’ Sitting Ability and Focused Attention

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Abstract

In the second half of their 1st year, infants master new motor skills, like sitting and crawling, while at the same time, show increasing ability to focus attention. In the traditional Focused Attention Task, infants sit in a parent’s lap or in a highchair as they receive toys to explore (Lawson & Ruff, 2001; Petrie Thomas, Whitfield, Oberlander, Synnes, & Grunau, 2012). However, maintaining control in balance-dependent postures taxes attention (Berger, Cunsolo, Ali, & Iverson, 2017; Berger, Harbourne, Arman & Sonsini, 2019). When effortful action imposes a cognitive load, cognition-action trade-offs are frequently elicited. Thus, previous measures of infants’ ability to focus attention do not fully consider the circumstances shaping the developmental trajectory of attention. The objective of this pre-registered study is to examine the impact of sitting skill on infants’ focused attention.

To address this question, we observed healthy, full-term, 6- to 8-month-old infants in their homes using video-conferencing technology. Infants could sit independently but could not yet crawl. Researchers instructed parents how to set up smartphone or laptop cameras to capture infants’ behaviors, guided parents live through the session, and recorded the session for later video coding. Infants’ sitting skill was measured quantitatively with an iPad application, the Angles Video Goniometer©. A short video of the infant held in a sitting position and then released (to note the resulting position and postural response), taken from a side-view position, allows angular measurements to be taken off-line of the head, trunk and extremities. This provides quantification of postural control in the sitting position. Infants received two versions of the Focused Attention (FA) task. Infants received 3 toys in succession to explore for 90 s each: 1) while they sat supported in a highchair (Lawson & Ruff, 2001) and 2) while they sat independently upright on the floor (Berger, et al., 2019). Behavioral measures of attention include steadiness of gaze, facial expression and affect; position of toys relative to eyes; self- consciousness; and minimal extraneous movement of all body segments, including head and extremities (Lawson & Ruff, 2001). To date, 6 infants (M=7 months) participated. We collect 3-4 sessions per week and are on track to complete data collection in 7-8 weeks.

Data analysis will test 1) whether the angle of the trunk to the legs after trunk support is released is correlated with latency to reach, and longest, total, frequency of, and global FA and 2) whether there is a difference in FA scores between supported and independent sitting. See Table 1 for operational definitions. We expect FA scores to be higher when infants are supported during the task. Based on previous work showing that the relation between postural control and perseveration depended on sitting proficiency (Berger, et al, 2019), we expect to find individual differences in cognition-action trade-offs between sitting and attention. We predict that some independent sitters will allocate attention to sitting, resulting in poorer FA, whereas others will allocate more attention to FA, resulting in poorer sitting.

Authors

• Shania N Patel, Bowdoin College
  Presenting Author

• Sapir Soker-Elimaliah, City University of New York College of Staten Island
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michele Goncalves Maia, Graduate Center, CUNY
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karl L. Jancart, Duquesne University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa N. Horger, Graduate Center, City University of New York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Regina T. Harbourne, Duquesne University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah E. Berger, City University of New York College of Staten Island
  Non-Presenting Author