Browsing by Author "Sinisalo, Hanneli"
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- Exploring associations between infant attachment, maternal sensitivity, and attention to maternal emotion expressionsPublication . Peltola, Mikko J.; Biro, Szilvia; Huffmeijer, Rens; Sinisalo, Hanneli; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian; IJzendoorn, Marinus H. vanRecent studies have indicated that patterns of infant‐caregiver attachment are associated with differences in infants’ processing of social signals of emotion, such as facial expressions. In the current longitudinal study we extended this line of research to social signals of actual attachment figures by investigating whether 7‐month‐old infants’ neural and attentional responses to their mother's angry and happy facial expressions are associated with infants’ attachment security to the mother at 12 months of age. At 7 months , we measured event‐related potentials (ERP) to the mother's angry and happy faces and attention dwell times to the mother's and a stranger's angry and happy faces, and maternal sensitivity was assessed during free play. At 12 months (n = 69), infant attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation procedure. In infants who were later classified as having secure attachment, the Nc ERP component indexing attention allocation was larger to maternal happy than angry expressions, whereas no difference in Nc amplitudes to maternal facial expressions was observed in infants with later insecure attachment. We speculate that this may indicate greater approach motivation triggered by the reward value of happy faces in securely attached infants through repeated experiences of positive interaction with the caregiver. Studies have indicated that different patterns of infant‐caregiver attachment are associated with infants’ processing of emotion expressions. We investigated whether infants’ attachment security is related to attentional and neural responses to their mother's facial expressions. Infants with secure attachment displayed larger attention‐related brain responses to their mother's happy than angry faces, no difference was found in insecurely attached infants.This may indicate greater reward value associated with happy faces in securely attached infants through repeated experiences of positive interaction with the caregiver.
- Impact of parity and salivary hormonal levels on motivation toward infant emotions.Publication . Sinisalo, Hanneli; Hahn, Amanda C.; Jones, Benedict C.; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian J.; Peltola, Mikko J.Infant faces have been shown to be particularly motivating stimuli for women. No studies, however, have compared mothers and nonmothers in whether parity modulates approach motivation toward emotional infant faces. We studied 54 Finnish first-time mothers and 42 nonmothers in a pay-per-view key-press task wheretheparticipants wereshown20infantfaceswithsmilingandcryingexpressions.Participantswere able to adjust the time each face was visible. In addition, salivary testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol levels were measured and their impact on motivation toward infants analyzed. When controlling for the hormonal levels, happy infant faces were viewed longer than crying faces and there was no difference in mean viewing times between mothers and nonmothers. An interaction between parity and emotion emerged: Mothers were more motivated to view happy faces and less motivated to view crying infant faces than nonmothers. Testosterone had a significant effect on viewing times: The higher the testosterone levels were, the shorter amount of time infant faces were viewed. This indicates that testosterone is inversely associated with approach motivation to emotional infant stimuli. This study is the first to compare mothers and nonmothers in a task measuring motivational responses to infant stimuli and indicates that the difference between the approach motivation caused by happy and distressed infant emotions might be more heightened in new mothers.