Research at TRI
PERCEPTION STUDIES
Aroma
Fernandez, M.,
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field, T., Sanders, C., Diego, M., & Roca, A. (2004). EEG during lavendar and rosemary exposure in infants of depressed
mothers. Infant Behavior and Development, 27, 91-100.
•
Infants of depressed mothers exposed to rosemary or lavender oil showed a shift
in EEG toward greater relative left frontal asymmetry. This shift was
associated with an approaching pattern of behavior and response to positive
stimuli.
Cardiac
Responses
Nelson,
M., Clifton, R., Dowd, J., & Field, T. (1978). Cardiac responding to auditory stimuli in newborn infants: Why pacifiers should
not be used when heart rate is the major dependent variable. Infant Behavior and Development, 1, 277-290.
•
The present study examined heart rate responses of 16 awake newborns to a 72 db
auditory stimulus presented at four different times in relation to ongoing
nonnutritive sucking activity: just before a sucking burst, early in a burst,
late in a burst, and just after a burst. In addition, heart rate changes were
examined during an intertrial sucking burst of selected duration. Intertrial
results indicated that rapid, 10 bpm heart rate accelerations and decelerations
occurred at the onset and offset of nonnutritive sucking, respectively. Heart
rate changes in relation to tones were either acceleratory or deceleratory,
depending on the nature of ongoing sucking activity. The results indicated that
precise cardiac somatic coupling may occur in the newborn, and that future
studies of neonatal heart rate responding should avoid the use of pacifiers to
control state.
Field, T. (1979). Differential behavioral and cardiac responses of 3 month old
infants to a mirror and peer. Infant
Behavior and Development, 2, 179-184.
•
Behavioral and cardiac responses were assessed for 3-month-old infants placed
face-to-face with a mirror and peer. Infants looked longer at the mirror, but
smiled, vocalized, reached toward and squirmed more in the presence of an
infant peer. In addition, tonic heart rate was elevated during the peer
situation. These effects may relate to the peer situation being more
stimulating or arousing. Differential responding to the mirror and peer
suggests some very early awareness of differences between a self-image and
another infant.
Field, T. (1979). Visual and cardiac responses to animate and inanimate faces by
young term and preterm infants. Child
Development, 50, 188-194.
•
Infants' looking and looking-away behaviors, as well as cardiac responses to
mothers' spontaneous and imitative and to dolls' animated and still faces, were
recorded for 18 term and 18 preterm infants when they were 3 months old.
Infants spent less time looking at their mothers' than at the doll's faces, and
their heart-rate levels were elevated while looking at mothers' faces. These
effects were most pronounced for the preterm infants whose inferior scores on
the animate visual item of the Brazelton neonatal scale suggested a continuity
of visual inattentiveness to animate stimuli. Both groups also looked at the inanimate
more than the animate doll's face and evidenced lower heart-rate levels during
that situation.
Field,
T., Dempsey, J., Hatch, J., Ting, G., & Clifton, R. (1979). Cardiac and behavioral responses to repeated tactile and
auditory stimulation by preterm and term neonates. Developmental Psychology, 15, 406-416.
•
Auditory stimuli and a tactile stimulus were repeatedly presented to 18 term
and 18 preterm infants. Both groups initially responded to all stimuli with
increased limb movements and heart rate acceleration. However, only the term
infants responded to stimuli repetition by decreasing both cardiac and
behavioral responses. In addition, they differentially responded to the three
stimuli and showed response recovery in both systems. Since a behavioral
response decrement was observed without a cardiac response decrement in the
preterm group a second experiment was conducted. Heart rate change during the
sucking activity of Experiment 2 revealed an integration between autonomic and motor responsivity of preterm infants comparable to that
of newborns.
Children
Field,
T., & Walden, T. (1982). Production
and discrimination of facial expressions by preschool children. Child Development, 53, 1299-1311.
•
Production and discrimination of the 8 basic facial expressions were
investigated among 34 3-5-year-old preschool children. Adults'
"guesses" of the children's productions as well as the children's
guesses of their own expressions on videotape were more accurate for the happy
than afraid or angry expressions and for those expressions elicited during the
imitation conditions. Greater accuracy of guessing by the adult than the child
suggests that the children's productions were superior to their
discriminations, although these skills appeared to be related. Children's
production skills were also related to sociometric ratings by their peers and
expressivity ratings by their teachers. These were not related to the child's
age and only weakly related to the child's expressivity during classroom
free-play observations.
Walden,
T., & Field, T. (1982). Discrimination
of facial expressions by preschool children. Child Development, 53, 1312-1319.
•
This study investigated preschool children's ability to discriminate and
categorize facial expressions. Children were shown drawings of persons with
expressions of joy, sadness, surprise, and anger and asked to choose from an
array of drawings the face that felt "the same" as the standard. In
some cases the match had identical facial features and in others the match was
a generalized version with no identical features. Both with and without prompts
children made fewer errors matching happy expressions and matched generalized
happy expressions as accurately as identical expressions. Surprised and angry
faces were less accurately matched. Providing verbal labels for the faces
facilitated matching, particularly for happy and generalized expressions,
suggesting that labeling or explicitly providing a conceptual category may aid
comparison and/or memory of the expressions. A levels-of-processing effect is
suggested to be operating in young children's discrimination and categorization
of facial expressions.
Depressed Mothers
Hart, S., Field, T.,
Letourneau, M., & DelValle, C. (1998). Jealousy protests in infants of
depressed mothers. Infant Behavior and
Development, 21, 137-148.
•
Twelve-month-old infants of (N=97) mothers reporting depressed and nondepressed
symptoms were videotaped while their mothers and a stranger directed positive
attention toward a book or a doll while they ignored the infant. During
conditions of unresponsiveness in which the object of attention was a doll,
infants of depressed versus nondepressed mothers demonstrated less protest
behavior, less proximity to their mothers, less disturbed exploratory activity
and greater proximity to a stranger.
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field,
T., Del Pino, N., & Diego, M. (2000). Less exploring by mouth occurs in
newborns of depressed mothers. Infant
Mental Health Journal, 21, 204-210.
•
Twenty-four newborns of depressed and nondepressed mothers were assessed for
oral perception of a nubby and smooth texture. Both groups of newborns
discriminated between these textures and showed a sucking preference for the
smooth texture. However, the newborns of depressed mothers spent 50% less time
orally exploring the stimuli, one-third less time exploring the more novel
nubby texture, and 59% less time mouthing the smooth texture. Newborns of
depressed mothers may have biological differences that affect their emotional
arousal and emotional regulation (e.g., capacity for self-soothing).
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field,
T., & Diego, M. (2004). Differential sucking by neonates of depressed
versus non-depressed mothers. Infant
Behavior and Development, 27, 465-476.
•
Forty-two neonates of depressed and non-depressed mothers sucked on cold and
warm nipples on alternating trials. Half the infants received the cold nipple
on the first of the eight trials and the other half received the warm nipple
first. Neonates of depressed mothers sucked twice as much as neonates of
non-depressed mothers, suggesting arousal dysregulation, overactivity or
greater hedonic behavior in the newborns of depressed mothers. Although the
newborns did not show a preference for cold or warm nipples, a temperature
order effect revealed that neonates who received the cold nipple on the first
trial sucked significantly more on trials 2–8 than those who received the warm
nipple on the first trial, suggesting that an initially cold nipple might
elicit greater sucking.
Field,
T., Hernandez-Reif, M., Vera, Y., Gil, K., Diego, M., & Sanders, C. (2005). Infants of depressed mothers facing a mirror versus their
mother. Infant Behavior and
Development, 28, 48-53.
•
Behavioral responses were assessed in 3-6-month-old infants of depressed mothers
placed face-to-face in front of a mirror versus in front of their mother.
Infants showed more positive behavior (smiling) with their mothers versus the
mirror but also showed more negative behavior (gaze aversion, distress brow and
crying) during the mother condition. These differences highlight the infants'
greater affective responses (both positive and negative) to their mother versus
the mirror. Equivalent amounts of vocalizing to the mother and mirror suggested
that the mirror does elicit social behavior, with the infants perhaps enjoying
watching themselves talk. Group differences suggested
that the infants of depressed mothers showed less gaze aversion with their
mothers, perhaps because their mothers were less interactive. When in front of
the mirror, they vocalized more and gaze averted less than the infants of
non-depressed mothers, suggesting that the mirror was particularly effective in
eliciting vocalizations in infants of depressed mothers.
Hernandez-Reif,
M., Diego, M., & Field, T. (2006). Instrumental and vocal
music effects in neonates of depressed and non-depressed mothers. Infant Behavior and Development, 29, 518-525.
•
Neonates of non-depressed mothers showed greater relative right frontal EEG
asymmetry to both types of music, suggesting a withdrawal response. Neonates of
depressed mother on the other hand, showed greater relative left frontal EEG
asymmetry to the instrumental without vocal segment, suggesting an approach
response, and greater relative right frontal EEG asymmetry to the instrumental
with vocal segment, suggesting a withdrawal approach.
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field,
T., Diego, M., & Ruddock, M. (2006). Greater arousal and lesser attention
by neonates of depressed vs non-depressed mothers on the brazelton neonatal
assessment scale. Infant Behavior and
Development, 29, 594-598.
• The neonates of depressed mothers received lower scores on orienting to the
live face/voice stimulus and on the alertness items, suggesting they were less
attentive. They also scored less optimally on the cuddliness and hand-to-mouth
activity items, suggesting they were more aroused.
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field, T., Diego, M., Vera, Y., & Pickens, J.
(2006). Happy faces are habituated more slowly by infants of depressed mothers. Infant Behavior &
Development., 29, 131-35.
•
Infants of depressed mothers took longer to habituate the video clips of facial
expressions compared to infants of non-depressed mothers, and those assigned to
habituate the sad video clips displayed a novelty response or dishabituated to
the happy expressions.
Field,
T., Diego, M., Hernandez-Reif, M. & Fernandez, M. (2007). Depressed mothers’ newborns show less discrimination of other newborns’ cry
sounds. Infant Behavior and Development,
30, 431-435.
•
The newborns of non-depressed mothers responded to the cry sounds of other
infants with reduced sucking and decreased heart rate. In contrast, the
newborns of depressed mothers did not show a change in their sucking or heart
rate to the cry of other infants. This lesser responsiveness to other infants’
cries may predict a lack of empathy.
Field,
T., Hernandez-Reif, M., Diego, M., Feijo, L., Vera, Y., Gil, K., & Sanders,
C. (2007). Responses to animate
and inanimate faces by infants of depressed mothers. Early Child Development and Care, 177, 533-539.
•
Forty infants of depressed mothers and non-depressed mothers were seated in an
infant seat and were exposed to four different degrees of animation, including
a still-face Raggedy Ann doll, the same doll in an animated state talking and
head-nodding, an imitative mother and a spontaneously interacting mother (the
more animate mother condition). The infants spent more time looking at the
doll, but they smiled and laughed more at the mother. The infants of depressed
versus non-depressed mothers showed less laughing and more fussing when their
mothers were spontaneously interacting, but showed more laughing and less
fussing during the mother imitation condition. Paradoxically, the infants of
non-depressed mothers were negatively affected by the imitation condition,
showing less smiling and laughing and more fussing than they had during the
spontaneous interactions.
EEG
Pickens, J., Field, T.,
Fox, N. & Nawrocki, T. (2001). Frontal EEG Asymmetry in
response to emotional vignettes in preschool age children. International Journal of Behavioral
Development, 25, 105-112.
•
EEG recordings were conducted with preschool children during presentations of
videotaped vignettes depicting a fictional young child experiencing happy, sad,
angry, and fearful events. Significant EEG asymmetry in the frontal region
(left frontal activation) occurred during all types of emotional vignettes, but
not during baseline periods (a neutral star-field image presented before and
after each vignette). These children displayed mostly neutral facial
expressions during the vignettes, with some evidence of lip movements during
the negative episodes (suggesting that the stories were eliciting some mild
emotional responses or empathy). There was no evidence of more intense
emotional responses that have been associated with right frontal cortical
activation. These EEG patterns may reflect cortical mechanisms underlying mild
emotional responses and affective displays in preschool children, as well as
their developing ability to regulate their affective systems.
Fernandez, M., Blass,
E.M., Hernandez-Reif, M., Field, T., Sanders, C., & Diego, M. (2003).
Sucrose attenuates a negative EEG response to an aversive stimulus for
newborns. Journal of Developmental and
Behavioral Pediatrics, 24, 261-266.
•
Reports that sweet taste calms crying in newborns and is analgesic against the
pain caused by a heel lance served as the basis for this study. In a randomized
and controlled trial, 34 newborns were administered 2 mL of water or sucrose
solution before the heelstroke. Infants who received water showed increased
relative right frontal EEG activation from baseline to the post-heelstroke
phase, a pattern that typifies negative affect. The EEG of infants in the
sucrose group did not change. Heart rate increased rapidly in both groups
during the heelstroke phase. However, after the heelstroke, the heart rate of
infants who received sucrose returned to baseline, whereas the heart rate of
infants who tasted water remained elevated. During the heelstroke, the infants
in the water group cried and grimaced twice as long as the infants in the
sucrose group. These findings add to the growing literature showing that
sucrose attenuates newborns' negative response to aversive or noxious stimuli.
Expressions
Field,
T., Woodson, R., Greenberg, R., & Cohen, D. (1982). Discrimination and imitation of facial expressions by
neonates. Science, 218, 179-181.
•
Human neonates discriminated three facial expressions (happy, sad, and
surprised) posed by a live model as evidenced by diminished visual fixation on
each face over trials and renewed fixations to the presentation of a different
face. The expressions posed by the model, unseen by the observer, were guessed
at greater than chance accuracy simply by observing the face of the neonate,
whose facial movements in the brow, eyes, and mouth regions provided evidence
for imitation of the facial expressions.
Field, T., Woodson, R.,
Cohen, D.,Greenberg, R., Garcia, R., & Collins, K.
(1983). Discrimination and imitation of facial expressions by
term and preterm neonates. Infant
Behavior and Development, 6, 485-489.
•
48 term and preterm neonates participated in this study. The habituation/
dishabituation data of this study suggest that the neonate is capable of discriminating
at least happy, sad, and surprised facial expressions. Habituation and
dishabituation was more pronounced in term than preterm infants. However, both
groups of infants appeared to imitate components of the expressions being
modeled, and their expressions were accurately guessed more frequently than
would be expected by chance.
Field, T. (1989). Individual and maturational differences in infant expressivity. New Directions for Child Development, 44, 9-23.
•
Young infants can discriminate among different facial expressions. However,
individual differences exist in infants' expressivity and ability to produce
and discriminate facial expressions. The greater concordance between
monozygotic than dizygotic twins on looking times and expressivity suggest that
individual differences in expressivity occur as early as birth, possibly due to
genetic differences.The significant individual differences between high- and
low-expressive infants on attentiveness, responsivity to social stimulation,
and automonic reactivity suggest that neonates may differ on a broader
dimension than simply their expressivity and highlight the complexity of
individual differences in neonatal behavior. Expressivity, or some other more
cornplex dimension such as extraversion, may be innate, as has been speculated
by Jones (1960) and Eysenck (1967), suggesting that there may be continuity on
this dimension.
Walden,
T., & Field, T. (1990). Preschool
children's social competence and production and discrimination of affective
expressions. British Journal of
Developmental Psychology, 8, 65-76.
•
This study investigated the relationship between the ability to discriminate
and produce facial expressions and social acceptance by peers of young
preschool children. Results indicated that abilities to discriminate and
produce expressions were unrelated when the contribution of age and IQ to the
relation was removed. Furthermore, posed and spontaneous productions of
expressions were not related. No gender differences were observed on any measures.
Thus, results indicate that children’s discriminations ability and spontaneous
expressivity predict social competence, as indexed by; liking by peers.
Lundy, B., Field, T.,
Cigales, M., Cuadra, A.,& Pickens, J.,(1997). Vocal and facial expression matching in infants of mothers with
depressive symptoms. Infant Mental
Health Journal, 18, 265-273.
•
This study investigated vocal and facial expression matching in 24 10-month-old
infants. Half of the mothers had reported depressive symptoms during the previous
week. Infants of mothers who reported depressive symptoms displayed less
accurate matching of the happy facial and vocal expressions and looked more to
sad facial expressions compared to infants of mothers who had not reported
depressive symptoms above the normal range. Infants' performance on the
expression matching task appears to be related to their primary caregivers'
reports of depressive symptoms during the previous week. However, other factors
that may be related to the group differences also need to be considered. For
example, maternal reports of depressive symptoms may be a marker for other
underlying factors that may have affected their infants' performance.
Field, T., Pickens, J.,
Fox, N., Gonzalez, J. & Nawrocki (1998). Facial
expressions and EEG responses to happy and sad faces/voices by 3-month-old
infants of depressed mothers. British
Journal of Developmental Psychology, 16, 485-494.
•
Videotaped happy and sad face/voice stimuli were presented after a neutral
starfield baseline stimulus to 24 3-month-old infants of depressed and
non-depressed mothers. The infants looked at and showed more positive
expressions during the happy and sad face/voice stimuli versus the neutral
starfield. The infants of non-depressed versus depressed mothers looked at the
sad face/voice stimulus longer, perhaps because the sad face/voice stimulus was
more novel for the infants of non-depressed mothers. A negative correlation
between EEG and visual fixation time suggested that less left frontal
activation (usually associated with withdrawal) was related to greater visual
fixation time (usually associated with approach behaviour). This mixed
approach/ withdrawal response was observed more frequently in infants of
non-depressed mothers and could be interpreted as a vigilant or empathetic
response in those infants.
Face-voice synchrony
Pickens, J., Field, T.,
Nawrocki, T., Martinez, A., Soutullo, D. & Gonzalez, J. (1994). Full-term and preterm infants' perception of face-voice synchrony. Infant Behavior and Development, 17,
447-455.
•
This study investigated auditory-visual matching of faces and voices by preterm
versus full-term infants at 3, 5, and 7 months of age. A significantly higher
rate of visual fixation to the sound-matching films was observed in the full-term
3- and 7-month groups, but not at 5 months. Longitudinal testing confirmed the
U-shaped developmental curve for full-term infants' task performance. In
contrast to full terms, preterm infants did not display evidence of detecting
face-voice synchrony. This suggests that an auditory-visual matching deficit
may be associated with infant prematurity.
Imitative Behaviors
Field, T., Guy, L.,& Umbel, V. (1985). Infants'
responses to mothers' imitative behaviors. Infant Mental Health Journal, 6, 40-44.
•
This study investigated whether infants smile and vocalize more frequently
subsequent to maternal imitative than non-imitative behavior during both
spontaneous and imitative face-to-face interactions. Fourteen 3-month old
infants and their mothers were videotaped in these two face-to-face interaction
situations. The infants vocalized more frequently during the imitative
situation and infant vocalizations plus simultaneous smiling, and vocalizations
occurred more often following maternal imitative than non-imitative behavior.
Although these data suggest that infant vocalizations and simultaneous smiles
and vocalizations may reflect the infants’ recognition of maternal imitative
behavior, they do not establish definitively that it is the imitation per se
vs. the contingency aspect that is recognized by the infant.
Field, T., Goldstein, S.,
Vega Lahr, N., & Porter, K. (1986). Changes in imitative
behavior during early infancy. Infant
Behavior and Development, 9, 415-421.
•
Changes in imitative behavior and attentiveness were observed in 40 infants
when they were 2 to 6 months of age. The facial expressions happy, sad, and
surprised were modeled in a trials-to-criterion procedure, and the infants'
looking time and mouth movements were recorded by an observer who was unaware
of the face being modeled. In addition, the observer recorded her guess as to
the expression being modeled by the corresponding expression on the infant's
face and rated the infant's expressivity. The results suggested that looking
time, correspondence between the mouth expression of the infant and the mouth
expression modeled, accuracy of the observer's guess, and expressivity ratings
decreased from 2 to 3 and 4 to 6 months. Although matching of mouth movements
with the modeled mouth movements and accuracy of guesses were greater than
chance over the 2 to 6 month-period, the decreases in these measures suggest
that imitative behavior declined across early infancy. The decrease in looking
time suggests that imitative behavior and attentiveness may be related and
highlights the limitation of this paradigm for assessing the development of
imitation during early infancy.
Newborn Infants
Field,
T., Cohen, D., Garcia, R., & Greenberg, R. (1984). Mother stranger face discrimination by the newborn. Infant Behavior and Development, 7, 19-25.
•
Newborn infants discriminate their mother's face from the face of a stranger
shortly after birth. The neonates showed an initial preference for their
mother's face. The mother's face (or face and voice) was then presented to the
neonates for repeated trials until the infant reached an habituation criterion. In a subsequent discrimination test the infants looked
significantly longer at the stranger's face, suggesting that the mother's face
was discriminated after very limited experience. Although voice cues were not
required for this discrimination, the possibility remains that other cues, such
as the mother's odor, may facilitate the discrimination of her face.
Temperature
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field,
T., Diego, M., and Largie, S. (2002). Haptic habituation to temperature is
slower in newborns of depressed mothers. Infancy,4, 47-63.
•
Infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers were habituated to a cold or
warm temperature tube by hand. Infants of depressed mothers 1) required twice
as long to habituate, 2) showed a sensitization effect, indexed as an increase
in holding from the second to the third trial of habituation and 3) showed
passive hand activity while holding the object in their hand.
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field,
T., Diego, M., & Largie, S. (2003). Haptic habituation to temperature is
slower in newborns of depressed mothers. Infancy,
4, 47-63.
•
Forty newborns of depressed and nondepressed mothers were habituated to a cold
or warm temperature tube by hand. Both groups of infants habituated the
temperature of the tube, as indicated by a decrease in holding, and
dishabituated, as indexed by an increase in holding when the temperature of the
tube changed. However, the newborns of depressed mothers (a) required twice as
long to habituate; (b) showed a sensitization effect, as indexed by an increase
in holding from the second to the third trial of habituation; and (c) passively
handled the objects with their hand.
Texture
Lundy, B., Field, T.,
Carraway, K., Hart, S., Malphurs, J.Rosenstein, M., Pelaez-Nogueras, M.,
Coletta, F., & Hernandez-Reif, M. (1998).Food texture preferences in
infants. Early
Child Development and Care, 146, 69-85.
• In
the present research, infants displayed more negative expressions, negative
head movements and negative body movements when presented with more complex
textures. In contrast, toddlers showed more positive head and body movements
and more eagerness for complex textures. The data also suggest that experience
with difficult-to-chew textures can facilitate a preference for a more complex
texture.
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field,
T., del Pino, N., and Diego. M. (2000). Less Exploring by mouth occurs in newborns of depressed mothers. Infant Mental Health Journal, 21, 204-210.
•
Newborns of depressed mothers spent half as much time orally exploring a nubby
and smooth texture orally, suggesting that they may have biological differences
affecting their emotional arousal and regulation.
Visual
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field,
T., Diego, M., & Largie, S. (2002). Depressed mothers' newborns show
inferior face discrimination. Infant
Mental Health Journal, 23, 643-653.
•
Infants of depressed mothers took longer to habituate their mothers' face/voice
and afterwards displayed no visual preference for mother or stranger, compared
to infants of non-depressed mothers who showed a novelty preference for
stranger.
Weight
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field,
T., Diego, M., and Largie, S. (2002). Weight perception by newborns of
depressed vs. non-depressed mothers. Infant
Behavior and Development, 24, 305-316.
•
Newborns of depressed mothers showed passive manipulation of objects and did
not detect a change in the object's weight during test trials.