Poster #4 - The Joint Significance of Mothers’ Neural Responding to Infant Cues and Infant Temperament for Caregiving Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session 11

Abstract

Mothers’ cognitive processing of infant cues is thought to organize caregiving behavior (Fuths et al., 2017). Event-related potentials (ERPs) index specific stages of cognitive processing, offering a useful tool for examining mothers’ processing of infant cues in relation to parenting behavior. The P300—reflective of attention allocation—has been implicated in parenting-related outcomes. However, findings across the literature have been inconsistent (Kuzava et al., 2020). Such inconsistencies may be due to studies examining links with indirect indicators of parenting behaviors instead of direct observations. Moreover, studies primarily focus on direct links between mothers’ neural responding to infant cues and parent-related outcomes. However, the small magnitude of associations suggests that other factors, including infant characteristics, might modify associations. Thus, we examined the significance of mothers’ P300 responding to infant emotional expressions for direct observations of caregiving behavior and the role of infant temperament in modulating the link between mothers’ neural responding to infant faces and parenting behavior.

Mothers (N=140) of 6-month-old infants completed an emotion oddball task while brain activity was measured. Mothers viewed images of their own baby displaying distress, happy, and neutral expressions. During each block, one expression served as the target stimulus, and one served as the emotional distractor (order counter-balanced). The P300 to infant emotional expressions was extracted for analyses. Parenting behaviors were observed during a free play context and interactions were coded for sensitivity to distress and sensitivity to non-distress using scales adapted from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (Frosch & Owen, 2016). Mothers completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised to assess negative emotionality (IBQ-R, Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003).

Results indicated that mothers who exhibited a larger P300 amplitude to their infants’ distress (r = 0.25, p < 0.01) and happy (r = 0.20, p < 0.05) expressions compared to neutral expressions were observed to respond to infant distress and non-distress signals more sensitively. Infant negative emotionality significantly moderated the association between mothers’ P300 amplitude to infant distress (vs. neutral) faces and sensitivity to distress (b= 0.18, p < 0.05). Specifically, the association was only significant among mothers with infants higher in negative emotionality (high negative emotionality: b = 0.42, p < 0.001; low negative emotionality: b = 0.08, p = 0.57).

Findings provide novel evidence that mothers’ neural responding to their own infant’s emotional expressions is associated with observed caregiving behavior in the normative range. Specifically, mothers who exhibited a larger P300 amplitude—reflective of heightened attention—to their infant’s emotional expressions responded more sensitively to their infant’s signals. Our findings provide evidence that infant temperament moderated the extent to which mothers’ neural responding was associated with their caregiving behavior, perhaps explaining past inconsistent findings. Specifically, mothers’ P300 amplitude to infant distress cues was only associated with mothers’ sensitive responding to infant distress among mothers of infants high in negative emotionality, possibly because such signals are particularly relevant for these dyads. Together, these findings add new evidence for the neural underpinnings of parenting behavior.

Authors

• Madeline Marie Patrick, University of Missouri, Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Nanxi Xu, Vanderbilt University

• Ashley M. Groh, University of Missouri - Columbia