Foetal testosterone and eye contact in 12-month-old human infants

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Lutchmaya ◽  
Simon Baron-Cohen ◽  
Peter Raggatt
Keyword(s):  
Eye Contact ◽  
Human Infants

scholarly journals A prosocial character of head-gaze aversion in common marmosets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Spadacenta ◽  
Peter W Dicke ◽  
Peter Thier
Keyword(s):  
Mammalian Species ◽  
Eye Contact ◽  
Striking Similarity ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Common Marmosets ◽  
Gaze Aversion ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Direct Gaze ◽  
Video Footage ◽  
The Gaze

Gaze aversion is a behavior adopted by several mammalian and non-mammalian species in response to eye contact and usually interpreted as reaction to perceived threat. Unlike many other primates, common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) are thought to have high tolerance for direct gaze, barely exhibiting gaze avoidance towards conspecifics and humans. Here we show that this does not hold for marmosets interacting with a familiar experimenter who suddenly establishes eye contact in a playful interaction (peek-a-boo game). In video footage synchronously recorded from the two agents, we found that our monkeys consistently alternated between eye contact and head-gaze aversion. The striking similarity with the gaze aversion dynamics exhibited by human infants interacting with their caregivers suggests a shared behavioral strategy to disengage temporarily from overwhelming social stimulation, in order to prepare for a new round of rewarding, affiliative face-to-face interaction. The potential of our finding for a marmoset model of autism is discussed.

scholarly journals Eye contact modulates facial mimicry in 4-month-old infants: an EMG and fNIRS study

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina de Klerk ◽  
Antonia Hamilton ◽  
Victoria Southgate
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Mouth Opening ◽  
Eye Contact ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Direct Gaze

Mimicry, the tendency to spontaneously and unconsciously copy others’ behaviour, plays an important role in social interactions. It facilitates rapport between strangers, and is flexibly modulated by social signals, such as eye contact. However, little is known about the development of this phenomenon in infancy, and it is unknown whether mimicry is modulated by social signals from early in life. Here we addressed this question by presenting 4-month-old infants with videos of models performing facial actions (e.g. mouth opening, eyebrow raising) and hand actions (e.g. hand opening and closing, finger actions) accompanied by direct or averted gaze, while we measured their facial and hand muscle responses using electromyography to obtain an index of mimicry (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2 the infants observed the same stimuli while we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate the brain regions involved in modulating mimicry by eye contact. We found that 4-month-olds only showed evidence of mimicry when they observed facial actions accompanied by direct gaze. Experiment 2 suggests that this selective facial mimicry may have been associated with activation over posterior superior temporal sulcus. These findings provide the first demonstration of modulation of mimicry by social signals in young human infants, and suggest that mimicry plays an important role in social interactions from early in life.

Manual Action in Infant Chimpanzees: A Preliminary Study

1996 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 611-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoji Itakura
Keyword(s):  
Index Finger ◽  
Eye Contact ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Finger Extension ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Infant Chimpanzees

In human infants, index finger extension is shown frequently even from 3 months old, and it is considered that such pointing develops into deictic and communicative pointing; however, there are many reports that chimpanzees do not point with the index finger. In the present study the manual actions of two infant chimpanzees were observed when the experimenter was trying to make eye contact with them. The result shows that pointing was shown very rarely by these infant chimpanzees even morphologically.

Functional characterization of human brown adipose tissue metabolism

2020 ◽  
Vol 477 (7) ◽  
pp. 1261-1286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Anne Richard ◽  
Hannah Pallubinsky ◽  
Denis P. Blondin
Keyword(s):  
Adipose Tissue ◽  
Brown Adipose Tissue ◽  
Functional Characterization ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
Brown Adipose ◽  
Treatment Of Obesity ◽  
And Function

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) has long been described according to its histological features as a multilocular, lipid-containing tissue, light brown in color, that is also responsive to the cold and found especially in hibernating mammals and human infants. Its presence in both hibernators and human infants, combined with its function as a heat-generating organ, raised many questions about its role in humans. Early characterizations of the tissue in humans focused on its progressive atrophy with age and its apparent importance for cold-exposed workers. However, the use of positron emission tomography (PET) with the glucose tracer [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]FDG) made it possible to begin characterizing the possible function of BAT in adult humans, and whether it could play a role in the prevention or treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D). This review focuses on the in vivo functional characterization of human BAT, the methodological approaches applied to examine these features and addresses critical gaps that remain in moving the field forward. Specifically, we describe the anatomical and biomolecular features of human BAT, the modalities and applications of non-invasive tools such as PET and magnetic resonance imaging coupled with spectroscopy (MRI/MRS) to study BAT morphology and function in vivo, and finally describe the functional characteristics of human BAT that have only been possible through the development and application of such tools.

A Pilot Study of Early Storybook Reading With Babies With Hearing Loss

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (9) ◽  
pp. 3397-3412
Author(s):  
Michelle I. Brown ◽  
David Trembath ◽  
Marleen F. Westerveld ◽  
Gail T. Gillon
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Eye Contact ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Storybook Reading ◽  
Book Selection ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
Parent Child

Purpose This pilot study explored the effectiveness of an early storybook reading (ESR) intervention for parents with babies with hearing loss (HL) for improving (a) parents' book selection skills, (b) parent–child eye contact, and (c) parent–child turn-taking. Advancing research into ESR, this study examined whether the benefits from an ESR intervention reported for babies without HL were also observed in babies with HL. Method Four mother–baby dyads participated in a multiple baseline single-case experimental design across behaviors. Treatment effects for parents' book selection skills, parent–child eye contact, and parent–child turn-taking were examined using visual analysis and Tau-U analysis. Results Statistically significant increases, with large to very large effect sizes, were observed for all 4 participants for parent–child eye contact and parent–child turn-taking. Limited improvements with ceiling effects were observed for parents' book selection skills. Conclusion The findings provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of an ESR intervention for babies with HL for promoting parent–child interactions through eye contact and turn-taking.

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