Poster #1 - Average Fixation Duration in Infancy and Adulthood: Associations with Sociodemographic Risk and Academic Performance

• In Event: Poster Session 11

Abstract

Sociodemographic disparity is common in the United States and has the potential to impact outcomes across the lifespan. For example, increased stress from parenting in minority groups, systemic barriers to healthcare and food, and decreased affordability of necessary products and services are all pathways through which early social disparities can impact infant development (Flores & Tomany-Korman, 2018; Davis et al., 2010). To examine the link between sociodemographic risk and cognitive development early in life, experiment one focused on the association between fixation durations and sociodemographic risk in 94 infants at 3.5 months of age (48 female). Parents completed a survey for socio-demographic risk, which measured income, maternal education, and subjective social status (indexed via the Macarthur ladder, Adler & Ostrove, 1999). Responses were then transformed to cumulative risk scores from 0 (White, non-Hispanic, above median family income, above median subjective social status, and above median maternal education) to 4 (racial/ethnic minority, below median family income, below median maternal education, below median subjective social status). The infants were shown human faces, and objects to measure average fixation duration using a Tobii TX300 eye-tracker. The results of experiment one found that average fixation durations were significantly longer (interpreted as poorer attentional control) for infants with higher scores on the socio-demographic risk scale, r (92) = .30, p = .004. This finding demonstrates that socio-demographic risk is associated with disruptions in executive functions within months of birth, therefore, interventions should target infancy to aid development across the lifespan.

To determine the possible downstream developmental implications for such differences in average fixation durations, experiment two focused on young adults. In a sample of sixty-eight White, non-Hispanic undergraduates, higher average fixation duration was associated with lower high school grade point average (GPA) controlling for subjective social status, gender, and total fixation duration, ß = -0.36, t (63) = -2.56, p = .01. The implications of experiment two are that average fixation duration appears to be a meaningful metric of cognitive development given that it is associated with academic performance in high school. Taken together the results of the present investigation indicate that individual differences in average fixation durations are associated with sociodemographic risk very early in life and these associations are likely meaningful given that average fixation duration is associated with academic performance later in life.

Authors

• Nicole E Shelley, University of Missouri - St. Louis
  Presenting Author

• Abby Jenson, University of Missouri- St. Louis

• Theresa Allison Moore, University of Missouri-Saint Louis

• Hannah White, University of Missouri - St. Louis