Attention control in preterm and term 5-month-old infants: Cross-task stability increases with gestational age.

Cross-task stability refers to performance consistency across different settings and measures of the same construct. Cross-task stability can help us understand developmental processes, including how risks such as preterm birth affect outcomes. We investigated cross-task stability of attention control in 32 preterm and 39 term infants. All infants had the same chronological age at time of testing (5 months) but varied in gestational age (GA) at birth (30-42 weeks). Infants completed an experimental attention following task with a researcher and a naturalistic play observation with their mothers. Both preterm and term infants demonstrated attention following in the experimental task. GA and flexibility of attention were related: the likelihood of no turn trials decreased with increasing GA. To evaluate cross-task stability, we compared attention performance in the experimental and naturalistic settings. Flexible attention shifts on the experimental task were positively related to attention to objects in the naturalistic observation. Furthermore, the association between flexible attention shifts on the experimental task and attention to objects in the naturalistic observation was moderated by GA. Our study provides initial evidence that the consolidation of attention control increases with GA. These findings highlight the value of comparing experimental and observational measures of attention.

The role of experience in parenting beliefs of British and Italian women during pregnancy.

To understand the role of experience in parenting beliefs about caring for infants, we examined the parenting beliefs of pregnant women who were expecting their first child with those of pregnant women who already had at least one other child. A culturally diverse sample of 550 British and Italian women completed self-report measures evaluating their beliefs about the value of attunement and structure in caregiving, parenting self-efficacy, and home chaos. Psychometric evaluation confirmed the two-factor structure of the Baby Care Questionnaire (BCQ) for measuring attunement and structure but did not support configural invariance across the different samples. Beliefs about attunement and structure were related to parenting experience: pregnant women who already had at least one other child reported stronger beliefs in attunement, whereas pregnant women expecting their first child reported stronger beliefs in structure. Regression analyses revealed that the associations between parenting beliefs and experience remained when controlling for country, age, and education. Despite the limitations imposed by the lack of configural invariance, this cross-sectional, cross-cultural study constitutes an important first step in examining the relations between parenting experience and parenting beliefs during pregnancy.

Para comprender el papel de la experiencia en las creencias de crianza sobre el cuidado de los infantes, examinamos las creencias de crianza de mujeres embarazadas que esperaban su primer niño con aquellas de mujeres embarazadas que ya tenían por lo menos otro niño. Un grupo muestra culturalmente diverso de quinientas cincuenta mujeres británicas e italianas completó medidas auto reportadas de evaluación de sus creencias acerca del valor de la coordinación armónica y la estructura en cuanto al cuidado, la auto efectividad de la crianza, así como el caos en casa. La evaluación sicométrica confirmó la estructura de dos factores del Cuestionario de Cuidado del Bebé (BCQ: Winstanley y Gattis, 2013) para medir la coordinación armónica y la estructura, pero no apoyó la invariabilidad configuracional a través de los diferentes grupos muestra. Las creencias acerca de la coordinación armónica y la estructura se relacionaron con la experiencia de la crianza: las mujeres embarazadas que ya tenían por lo menos otro niño reportaron creencias más fuertes en cuanto a la coordinación armónica, mientras que las mujeres embarazadas que esperaban su primer niño reportaron creencias más fuertes en cuanto a la estructura. Los análisis de regresión revelaron que las asociaciones entre las creencias de crianza y la experiencia se mantenían siendo las mismas cuando se usaron los controles referentes a país, edad y educación. A pesar de las limitaciones impuestas por la falta de la invariabilidad configuracional, este estudio interseccional constituye un importante paso en el examen de las relaciones entre la experiencia de crianza y las creencias sobre la crianza durante el embarazo.

Afin de comprendre le rôle de l'expérience dans les croyances de parentalité sur la manière de prendre soin des bébés, nous avons examiné les croyances de parentalité de femmes enceintes qui attendaient leur premier enfant avec celles de femmes enceintes ayant déjà eu au moins un enfant. Un échantillon culturellement divers de cinq cent cinquante femmes britanniques et italiennes ont rempli des mesures auto-rapportées évaluant leurs croyances concernant la valeur de l'harmonisation et de la structure dans les soins à l'enfant, l'auto-efficacité de parentalité, et le chaos à domicile. L'évaluation psychométrique a confirmé la structure à deux facteurs du Questionnaire du Soin au Bébé (abrégé BCQ en anglais; Winstanley & Gattis, 2013) pour la mesure de l'harmonisation et de la structure mais n'a pas soutenu l'invariance de configuration au travers des différents échantillons. Les croyances sur l'harmonisation et la structure étaient liées à l'expérience de parentalité: les femmes enceintes qui avaient déjà eu un enfant ont fait état de croyances plus fortes dans l'harmonisation, alors que les femmes enceintes attendant leur premier enfant ont fait état de croyances plus fortes dans la structure. Des analyses de régression ont révélé que les liens entre les croyances de parentalité et l'expérience demeuraient quand on contrôlait pour le pays, l'âge et l'éducation. En dépit des limitations imposées par le manque d'invariance de configuration, cette étude transversale et multiculturelle constitue une étape importante dans l'examen des relations entre l'expérience de parentalité et les croyances de parentalité durant la grossesse.

Foundations of attention sharing: Orienting and responding to attention in term and preterm 5-month-old infants.

Attention is the gateway to perceptual, cognitive, and socioemotional development in humans. We observed 104 5-month-old term and preterm infants and their mothers in social interactions to address three questions about the role of maturation in orienting and responding to attention. We used a fine-grained coding system to allow parallel comparisons across infant and maternal orienting, and sequential analysis to evaluate infant and maternal responding to attention. Orienting and responding to attention differed for attention to people versus objects, as did the relations between maturity and attention. We conclude that maturity contributes to orienting and responding to attention and that orienting and responding to attention are specific rather than homogenous. We discuss the implications of these conclusions for future studies of how attention influences cognitive and communicative development.

Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reduces interpersonal disgust.

Disgust for contaminating objects (core disgust), immoral behaviors (moral disgust) and unsavory others (interpersonal disgust), have been assumed to be closely related. It is not clear, however, whether different forms of disgust are mediated by overlapping or specific neural substrates. We report that 10 patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) avoided behaviors that normally elicit interpersonal disgust (e.g. using the scarf of a busker) less frequently than healthy and brain-damaged controls, whereas they avoided core and moral disgust elicitors at normal rates. These results indicate that different forms of disgust are dissociated neurally. We propose that the vmPFC is causally (and selectively) involved in mediating interpersonal disgust, shaping patterns of social avoidance and approach.