Theyer, Aimee
(2025)
Caregiver involvement on developmental changes in visual cognition: insights from behaviour and brain.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
Early in development, infants begin to share attention with mature caregivers, learning about objects and their environments. During this period, there are also considerable increases in visual cognition. Given that this system has far-reaching outcomes impacting the quality of life, it is important to study how this emerges and develops early in the lifespan, as well as what factors might influence its developmental trajectory. This thesis aimed to address these gaps, investigating associations between caregiver and infant visual neurocognition, with insights from dyadic play interactions. To do this, the preferential looking task was used to assess visual cognition at multiple timepoints. Caregiver-infant dyads also completed play interactions with objects. To gain a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms that underly behaviours during the preferential looking task and dyadic interactions, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was also used to examine brain function.
Previous research has suggested that infants’ ability to sustain attention may be influenced by their caregivers’ own attentional behaviours. Chapter 3 therefore examined if this association was measurable when visual cognition is objectively measured in caregivers and infants using comparable experimental paradigms. Importantly, findings in this chapter reported associations between caregivers’ and infants’ abilities to detect change. Further, infants with caregivers who were better able to detect change showed greater left parietal cortex activation. These findings provide first evidence of a visual neurocognitive association between caregivers and their children in the first year of life. To better understand these associations, Chapter 4 investigated how caregiver and infant behaviours and brain function during dyadic play interactions influence infant visual cognition. This chapter focused on unimodal (look only), bimodal (look and touch) and multimodal (look, touch, and verbalisations/vocalisations) object engagement behaviours. While this chapter reported caregiver-infant brain associations during play, there were no associations with infant visual cognition. To analyse the play interaction data in greater depth, Chapter 5 examined periods in which caregivers were showing multimodal engagement whilst interacting with the same object as their infant (joint attention), and periods in which the infant continued to interact with that same object after caregiver multimodal engagement ended (continued attention). Findings in this chapter reported that greater joint attention between caregivers and infants was associated with greater continued attention in infants. Importantly, this chapter found that reduced activation in the left temporal cortex in caregivers during joint attention was associated with reduced activation in the left temporal cortex in infants during joint activation, longer duration of joint and continued attention, and better visual cognition in infants. These findings contribute to understanding of cortical mechanisms engaged during attention periods in caregiver-infant interactions and how these mechanisms might be linked to visual cognition in infants. However, further investigation is required to better understand longitudinal effects. Therefore, Chapter 6 investigated the impact of caregiver-infant dyadic behaviours on longitudinal changes in visual neurocognition from infancy to toddlerhood. Findings reported developmental changes in behaviour and brain function from infancy to toddlerhood. Furthermore, findings suggested that infants who experienced a shorter duration of joint attention do not show consistency in left temporal engagement from infancy to toddlerhood. In line with findings in Chapter 5, it was suggested that children who demonstrate inconsistency in temporal cortex activation are less able to suppress this region and efficiently recruit neural resources for visual cognition.
Collectively, this thesis highlights the potential mechanisms by which caregiver-infant joint engagement shapes visual cognition and underlying brain function in early life. Ultimately, by shedding light on the role of caregiver behaviours in shaping infant attention and cognitive development, these novel findings have potential implications for informing caregiving practices, early intervention methods, and future visual cognition research.
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