A longitudinal investigation of infant attention across diverse contexts

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

A frequent criticism of developmental research notes that we all too often focus on samples of convenience, lacking in diversity and therefore limiting the generalizability of our findings (Sugden & Moulson, 2015). Recruitment for longitudinal studies is demanding in and of itself, and can be particularly challenging when recruiting a diverse sample across basic demographic variables. Psychologists have increasingly drawn attention to this problem, emphasizing the importance of capturing diversity in our samples (e.g., Brown et al., 2019; Henrich et al., 2010), and Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model highlights the importance of both proximal and distal levels of the environment on early development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). For example, infants display a processing bias toward affect early in life (Johnson et al., 1991) and the environment may shape specific processing of faces over time (i.e. Taylor-Collis & Pasco-Fearon, 2015). Here, we first describe data from an ongoing longitudinal study of infants sampled from three diverse locations. We then examine how proximal (parental) and distal (household, community) factors of the rearing environment impact basic attentional processing in infants, and highlight the importance of collecting data from diverse samples.

Infants and caregivers enrolled in an ongoing longitudinal study when infants were 4, 8, or 12 months of age, for a total enrollment of 357. Depending on enrollment, infants and their caregivers were tested at 4, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months of age. Importantly, participants were recruited from three diverse sites: State College, PA (N=167), Harrisburg, PA (N=81) and Newark, NJ (N=109) (Figure 1). For all analyses, infants and caregivers were included if they completed all measures for each analysis.

We first examine how proximal (parent/household) and distal (perception of the community) factors in the rearing environment relate to basic attentional processing in young infants. Infants completed a passive viewing eye-tracking task to assess their ability to disengage from emotional faces. Following the presentation of an angry, happy, or neutral face, a checkerboard probe appeared in the periphery of the screen, and we measured latency to fixate the probe. We ran a series of linear regressions with contextual factors as predictors and infant looking as the outcome measure, controlling for infant looking at the previous timepoint the task was completed. We highlight two interesting results. First, community disorder at 4-months significantly predicted latency to fixate the probe at 8-months (N = 52, F = 3.20, p = .05). Further, community violence at 4-months marginally predicted latency to fixate the probe on trials with angry faces at 8-months (N = 34, F= 2.58, p = .09), and community violence at 8-months significantly predicted latency to fixate the probe on trials with angry faces at 12-months (N = 51, F= 3.99, p = .03). Importantly, these community factors also differed by location (Figure 2).

Taken together, these results suggest that diversity in the infant’s environment can impact basic developmental processes as early as 8 and 12 months of age, highlighting the importance of recruiting diverse samples to examine the effects of early environments on the developing infant.

Authors

• Lori Beth Reider, Rutgers University - Newark
  Presenting Author

• Jessica Burris, University of Rutgers - Newark
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Ann Bierstedt, Rutgers University - Newark
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kali Revilla, Rutgers University - Newark
  Non-Presenting Author

• Claudia Pinzon, Rutgers University - Newark
  Non-Presenting Author

• Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin A. Buss, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Vanessa Lobue, Rutgers University
  Non-Presenting Author