Poster #19 - Reward Sensitivity for 3-to 4- Year-Olds

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Biological Processes: Neuroscience and Genetics

Integrative Statement

Brain-based studies examining neural correlates of anticipation have primarily been performed in school-aged children and adults (e.g., Böcker, Brunia, & van den Berg-Lenssen, 1994; Ditcher, Richey, Rittenberg, Sabatino & Bodfish, 2012). Elucidating how younger populations anticipate rewards is critical for understanding the development of social cognitive skills that are supported by anticipation and the processes that are triggered by it. We sought to develop a passive event-related potential (ERP) paradigm to detect anticipatory neural signatures for social and non-social stimuli in children as young as 3-years-old. Our goal was to establish a paradigm that would enable investigations into the development of reward anticipation in younger populations (e.g., toddlers and infants), thereby broadening the overall scope of this field of study.
We tested typically developing children (n=31; 15 females and 16 males) who were between 3 and 4 years old. Participant data were excluded for the following reasons: equipment malfunction (n=6) and insufficient number of trials (n=6). All statistics reflect 20 participants (12 females and 8 males; M=49.9 months, SD=6.5 months). The experiment had two different conditions: social and nonsocial. During the first 16 trials, participants observed the association where the predictor stimulus, S1 (colorful square or X) predicted a target S2 stimulus (social or non-social stimulus) with 100% reliability (Figure 1). Pairings of predictor and target stimuli were counterbalanced across participants. The social stimulus consisted of a video of one of four unique female faces (smiling) obtained from the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set (ADFES) (Van DerSchalk, Hawk, Fischer, & Doosje, 2011). The non-social stimulus consisted of a video clip of one of four toy cars rolling down a ramp. After the presentation of the initial 16 trials, participants observed randomized trials. In 80% of trials, the predictor-target pairing was maintained. In the remaining 20% of trials, predictors were paired with moving fractal images.
We predicted that through repeated presentations, children would learn the paired association between S1 and S2 (social or non-social) stimulus and would begin to anticipate the reward based on the predictor stimulus, resulting in an SPN. In particular, we predicted that children with typical development would have a greater anticipation for social than for non-social stimuli. As expected, there was a significant difference in condition such that the SPN was larger in the social vs. nonsocial condition F (1,19) = 4.562, p=.046. Figure 2 depicts the grand average ERP waveforms from the electrodes analyzed. To our knowledge, this is the first study to elicit an SPN in children as young as toddlers and detect anticipatory neural signatures that show children with typical development have a greater anticipation for social stimuli than non-social stimuli. These insights may have far-reaching implications for the social cognitive development in toddlers.

Authors

• Jae Engle, UCSD
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leslie Carver, UCSD
  Presenting Author