Poster #7 - Physiological Responses to an Online Infant Cry Stimulus Task in Expectant Mothers

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new difficulties in keeping participants and research assistants safe during lab visits, forcing many researchers to alter their data collection protocols. Many labs have adapted previously validated research tasks and experiments to online platforms. The present study compares the physiological effects of an online adaptation of the Infant Cry Stimulus (ICS) task. The ICS is commonly used in developmental psychology to affect and measure sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system responses to an attachment-relevant stressor in pregnant women, the infant cry. Measuring respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and electrodermal activity (EDA) during infant cry presentation, we analyzed a unique sample (N = 115) of pregnant women in their third trimester, half of whom conducted the ICS task in the laboratory before the pandemic. Analysis has shown no significant differences between group mean difference scores in response to the online and in-person infant cry stimulus - an exciting first step in validating the virtual task. As other labs have adopted online protocols for remote data collection, these results demonstrate the ability of remote tasks to elicit an attachment-relevant stress response in pregnant women from the comfort of their homes. Future studies in developmental science will be able to recruit from a more diverse population of participants, including rural or otherwise underrepresented populations unable to travel to large research facilities.

Authors

• Shane Denherder, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Dylan Neff, University of Utah

• Rose McLaughlin, University of Utah

• Joshua Marchant

• Lee Raby, University of Utah

• Sheila E Crowell, University of Utah

• Liz Conradt, Duke University