Being in Tune With Your Body: The Emergence of Interoceptive Processing Through Caregiver–Infant Feeding Interactions

Interoception—the ability to perceive and respond to internal bodily sensations—is fundamental for the continuous regulation of physiological processes. Recently, it has been suggested that because infants depend completely on their caregivers for survival, the development of interoceptive processing emerges as a result of early dyadic interactions, and relies on caregivers’ ability to respond to and meet infants’ physiological needs. In this article, I examine how both caregivers’ and infants’ own characteristics contribute to the emergence and development of infants’ interoceptive processing. In particular, by focusing on feeding interactions, I suggest that infants build expectations about the cause of their internal sensations via a dynamic process of interoceptive distinction between self and other. This developmental account provides a framework that considers the complexity of early dyadic exchanges, and offers novel hypotheses for research investigating the mechanisms involved in the ontogeny of interoceptive processing and eating behaviors

Affective Touch Enhances Self-Face Recognition During Multisensory Integration

Multisensory integration is a powerful mechanism for constructing body awareness and key for the sense of selfhood. Recent evidence has shown that the specialised C tactile modality that gives rise to feelings of pleasant, affective touch, can enhance the experience of body ownership during multisensory integration. Nevertheless, no study has examined whether affective touch can also modulate psychological identification with our face, the hallmark of our identity. The current study used the enfacement illusion paradigm to investigate the role of affective touch in the modulation of self-face recognition during multisensory integration. In the first experiment (N = 30), healthy participants were stroked on the cheek while they were looking at another face being stroked on the cheek in synchrony or asynchrony with affective (slow; CT-optimal) vs. neutral (fast; CT-suboptimal) touch. In the second experiment (N = 38) spatial incongruence of touch (cheek vs. forehead) was used as a control condition instead of temporal asynchrony. Overall, our data suggest that CT-optimal, affective touch enhances subjective (but not behavioural) self-face recognition during synchronous and spatially congruent integration of different sensations and possibly reduces deafference during asynchronous multisensory integration. We discuss the role of affective touch in shaping the more social aspects of our self

Changes in self-other boundaries modulate children’s body image attitudes

One’s own face is a key distinctive feature of our physical appearance, yet multisensory visuo-tactile stimulation can alter self-other boundaries, eliciting changes in adult’s self-face representation and social cognition processes. This study tested whether changing self-face representation by altering self-other boundaries with the enfacement illusion modulates body image attitudes toward others in 6−11-year-old children (N = 51; 31 girls; predominantly White). Across all ages, congruent multisensory information led to stronger enfacement (η2p = 0.06). Participants who experienced a stronger enfacement illusion showed preference for larger body size, suggesting increased positive body size attitudes. This effect was stronger in 6–7-year-olds compared to 8–9-year-olds. Thus, blurring self-other boundaries successfully modulates self-face representation and body image attitudes toward others in children. Our results suggest that increased self-resemblance through self-other blurring resulting from the enfacement illusion may reduce social comparisons between self and other and result in positive body size attitudes

Synchrony of Caresses: Does Affective Touch Help Infants to Detect Body-Related Visual–Tactile Synchrony?

Bodily self-awareness, that is the ability to sense and recognize our body as our own, involves the encoding and integration of a wide range of multisensory and motor signals. Infants’ abilities to detect synchrony and bind together sensory information in time and space critically contribute to the process of gradual bodily self-awareness. In particular, early tactile experiences may have a crucial role in promoting self-other differentiation and developing bodily self-awareness. More specifically affective touch, slow and gentle touch linked to the neurophysiologically specialized system of C-tactile afferents, provides both information about the body from within (interoception) and outside (exteroception), suggesting it may be a key component contributing to the experience of bodily self-awareness. The present study aimed to investigate the role of affective touch in the formation and modulation of body perception from the earliest stages of life. Using a preferential looking task, 5-month-old infants were presented with synchronous and asynchronous visuo–tactile body-related stimuli. The socio-affective valence of the tactile stimuli was manipulated by means of the velocity [CT-optimal (slow) touch vs. CT-suboptimal (fast) touch] and the source of touch (human hand vs. brush). For the first time, we show that only infants that were stroked using a brush at slow velocity displayed a preference for the visual–tactile synchronous video, suggesting that CT-optimal touch might help infants to detect body-related visual–tactile synchrony, independently from the source of touch. Our results are in line with findings from adults and indicate that affective touch might have a critical role in the early development of bodily self-awareness

Trajectory Discrimination and Peripersonal Space Perception in Newborns

The ability to discriminate the trajectories of moving objects is highly adaptive and fundamental for physical and social interactions. Therefore, we could reasonably expect sensitivity to different trajectories already at birth, as a precursor of later communicative and defensive abilities. To investigate this possibility, we measured newborns\u2019 looking behavior to evaluate their ability to discriminate between visual stimuli depicting motion along different trajectories happening within the space surrounding their body. Differently from previous studies, we did not take into account defensive reactions, which may not be elicited by impending collision as newborns might not categorize approaching stimuli as possible dangers. In two experiments, we showed that newborns display a spontaneous visual preference for trajectories directed toward their body. We found this visual preference when visual stimuli depicted motion in opposite directions (approaching vs. receding) as well as when they both moved toward the peripersonal space and differed only in their specific target (i.e., the body vs. the space around it). These findings suggest that at birth human infants seem to be already equipped with visual mechanisms predisposing them to perceive their presence in the environment and to adaptively focus their attention on the peripersonal space and their bodily self

Newborns Are Sensitive to Impending Collision Within Their Peripersonal Space

Immediately after birth, newborns are introduced within a highly stimulating environment, where many objects move close to them. It would therefore be adaptive for infants to pay more attention to objects that move towards them - on a colliding pathway - and could therefore come into contact and interact with them. The present study aimed at understanding if newborns are able to discriminate between colliding vs. noncolliding trajectories. To address this issue, we measured the looking behaviour of newborns who were presented with videos of different pairings of three events: approaching objects along a colliding course, approaching objects along a non-colliding trajectory, and receding objects. Results outlined that newborns preferred looking at the approaching and colliding movement than at both the receding and the approaching but non-colliding movements. Data also suggest the possible occurrence of a configural effect when two colliding events are displayed simultaneously. Furthermore newborns appeared to look longer at movements directed towards the Peripersonal Space than at those directed away from it

Affective certainty and congruency of touch modulate the experience of the rubber hand illusion

Our sense of body ownership relies on integrating different sensations according to their temporal and spatial congruency. Nevertheless, there is ongoing controversy about the role of affective congruency during multisensory integration, i.e. whether the stimuli to be perceived by the different sensory channels are congruent or incongruent in terms of their affective quality. In the present study, we applied a widely used multisensory integration paradigm, the Rubber Hand Illusion, to investigate the role of affective, top-down aspects of sensory congruency between visual and tactile modalities in the sense of body ownership. In Experiment 1 (N = 36), we touched participants with either soft or rough fabrics in their unseen hand, while they watched a rubber hand been touched synchronously with the same fabric or with a ‘hidden’ fabric of ‘uncertain roughness’. In Experiment 2 (N = 50), we used the same paradigm as in Experiment 1, but replaced the ‘uncertainty’ condition with an ‘incongruent’ one, in which participants saw the rubber hand being touched with a fabric of incongruent roughness and hence opposite valence. We found that certainty (Experiment 1) and congruency (Experiment 2) between the felt and vicariously perceived tactile affectivity led to higher subjective embodiment compared to uncertainty and incongruency, respectively, irrespective of any valence effect. Our results suggest that congruency in the affective top-down aspects of sensory stimulation is important to the multisensory integration process leading to embodiment, over and above temporal and spatial properties

Are advanced methods necessary to improve infant fNIRS data analysis? An assessment of baseline-corrected averaging, general linear model (GLM) and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) based approaches

In the last decade, fNIRS has provided a non-invasive method to investigate neural activation in developmental populations. Despite its increasing use in developmental cognitive neuroscience, there is little consistency or consensus on how to pre-process and analyse infant fNIRS data. With this registered report, we investigated the feasibility of applying more advanced statistical analyses to infant fNIRS data and compared the most commonly used baseline-corrected averaging, General Linear Model (GLM)-based univariate, and Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) approaches, to show how the conclusions one would draw based on these different analysis approaches converge or differ. The different analysis methods were tested using a face inversion paradigm where changes in brain activation in response to upright and inverted face stimuli were measured in thirty 4-to-6-month-old infants. By including more standard approaches together with recent machine learning techniques, we aim to inform the fNIRS community on alternative ways to analyse infant fNIRS datasets

The Impact of Parents’ Smartphone Use on Language Development in Young Children

Smartphone use is ubiquitous in the lives of parents, and an emerging area of research is investigating how parental smartphone use during parent–child interactions affects children’s language outcomes. Findings point toward negative outcomes in language development, but it is less clear what processes affect language outcomes. Gaze following, parental responsiveness, and joint attention are also reduced when parents use their smartphone, and all are critical to language development. In this article, we propose that these factors may mediate the effects of technoference due to parents’ smartphone use on language development in children from birth to 5 years. Because of methodological differences in the limited research conducted on this topic, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about this proposal. We discuss these considerations and suggest directions for the field

The mental health crisis of expectant women in the UK: effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on prenatal mental health, antenatal attachment and social support

Background Experiences of prenatal trauma exacerbates vulnerability to negative health outcomes for pregnant women and their infants. We aimed to examine the role of: 1) anxiety, depression, and stress related to COVID-19 in predicting the quality of antenatal attachment; 2) perceived social support and COVID-19 appraisal in predicting maternal anxiety and depression.Methods A sample of 150 UK expectant women were surveyed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions included demographics, pregnancy details, and COVID-19 appraisal. Validated measures were used to collect self-reported maternal antenatal attachment (MAAS), symptoms of anxiety (STAI), depression (BDI-II), and stress related to the psychological impact of COVID-19 (IES-r). Results We found that the pandemic has affected UK expectant mothers’ mental health by increasing prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress. Women for whom COVID-19 had a higher psychological impact were more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms. High depressive symptoms were associated with reduced attachment to the unborn baby. Whilst women who appraised the impact of COVID-19 to be more negative showed higher levels of anxiety, higher social support acted as a protective factor and was associated with lower anxiety.Limitations The cross-sectional nature of the study hinders conclusions about causality. Future research should include paternal prenatal mental health. Conclusions Direct experience of prenatal trauma, such as the one experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, significantly amplifies mothers’ vulnerability to mental health symptoms and impairs the formation of a positive relationship with their unborn baby. Health services should prioritise interventions strategies aimed at fostering support for pregnant women