11-Month-old visual attention predicts cognitive development at 4 years

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Attention, Learning, Memory

Abstract

Visual attention is a foundational aspect of early cognitive development. Research has shown that early visual attention is related to a variety of longitudinal outcomes (e.g., Colombo, 1993, Rose et al. 2005). However, it remains unclear which components of attention (e.g., attention orienting, attention vigilance, overall engagement) drive this relationship. The current project seeks to address this question by examining how the smallest unit of attention, eye movements, relate to later cognitive outcomes. To accomplish this, reflexive eye movements were examined using the Infant Orienting with Attention Task (IOWA; Ross-Sheehy et. al., 2015). Saccadic reaction time (SRT) and accuracy scores were then used to classify 11-month-old infants into three attentional phenotypes: high flexible, high reactive, and low reactive (Ross-Sheehy et. al., 2020). High flexible infants showed strong spatial cueing effects, fast SRTs, and moderate accuracy suggesting good cortical development and inhibitory control. High reactive infants also showed strong cueing effects and fast SRTs, but had substantially lower accuracy, suggesting relatively poor inhibitory control. Lastly, low reactive infants had poor spatial attention, relatively slow SRTs and low accuracy, suggesting relatively limited cortical development. These phenotypes have already been linked to performance differences on a concurrent visual STM task (Ross-Sheehy et al., 2020), however it is unclear if these early phenotypic differences will contribute to longer-term outcomes as well. To test this, we retested these infants at 4-years-of-age using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire-3 (ASQ-3; Squires et al., 2009). If differences in orienting attention captured by these attentional phenotypes drive long-term differences in general cognitive development, we would expect to see systematic differences as a function of their 11-month-old attentional phenotype classification.

Methods: 111 infants were initially tested in the IOWA Task at 11 months, and eye tracking was used to classify infants into one of three attentional phenotype groups based on SRT and accuracy. These infants were then re-contacted as they approached their 4th birthday, and 43 of these infants completed the ASQ-3, resulting in the following phenotype groups: high flexible (n= 23), low reactive (n=19), and high reactive (n=1, note that due to low sample size the high reactive infants were excluded from analysis). The ASQ-3 was used to assess general development across 5 domains: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal-social.

Results: A Mann-Whitney U test revealed that high flexible children had significantly higher ASQ-3 scores than low reactive children in three domains, including communication U=138, z=-2.208, p=0.027, gross motor U=125, z=-2.5, p=0.012, and problem-solving U=138.5, z=-2.153, p=0.03 (see Figure 1). With high flexible children having significantly higher mean rank scores, 25(communication), 25.57(gross motor), and 24.98(problem-solving), than low reactive children, 17.26(communication), 16.58(gross motor), and 17.29(problem-solving), on all three domains. Suggesting that these attentional phenotypes extend beyond low-level eye movements and provide the foundation for later developmental outcomes. These results demonstrate low-level eye movement patterns measured at 11 months using the IOWA task are stable and contribute to long-term developmental differences across both motor and cognitive domains.

Authors

• Esther Reynolds, University of Tennessee - Knoxville
  Presenting Author

• Shannon Ross-Sheehy, University of Tennessee - Knoxville
  Non-Presenting Author