@article{ab7c91dddfb841c7a33e3b3c088f9a55,
title = "Infant and Adult Brains Are Coupled to the Dynamics of Natural Communication",
abstract = "Infancy is the foundational period for learning from adults, and the dynamics of the social environment have long been considered central to children{\textquoteright}s development. Here, we reveal a novel, naturalistic approach for studying live interactions between infants and adults. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we simultaneously and continuously measured the brains of infants (N = 18; 9–15 months of age) and an adult while they communicated and played with each other. We found that time-locked neural coupling within dyads was significantly greater when dyad members interacted with each other than with control individuals. In addition, we characterized the dynamic relationship between neural activation and the moment-to-moment fluctuations of mutual gaze, joint attention to objects, infant emotion, and adult speech prosody. This investigation advances what is currently known about how the brains and behaviors of infants both shape and reflect those of adults during real-life communication.",
keywords = "communication, development, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, infancy, language, naturalistic, neural coupling, open data, open materials",
author = "Piazza, {Elise A.} and Liat Hasenfratz and Uri Hasson and Casey Lew-Williams",
note = "Funding Information: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6729-8559 Piazza Elise A. 1 2 Hasenfratz Liat 1 2 Hasson Uri 1 2 Lew-Williams Casey 2 1 Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University 2 Department of Psychology, Princeton University Elise A. Piazza, Princeton University, Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, Princeton, NJ 08540 E-mail: elise.piazza@gmail.com 12 2019 0956797619878698 11 8 2018 16 8 2019 {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2019 2019 Association for Psychological Science Infancy is the foundational period for learning from adults, and the dynamics of the social environment have long been considered central to children{\textquoteright}s development. Here, we reveal a novel, naturalistic approach for studying live interactions between infants and adults. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we simultaneously and continuously measured the brains of infants ( N = 18; 9–15 months of age) and an adult while they communicated and played with each other. We found that time-locked neural coupling within dyads was significantly greater when dyad members interacted with each other than with control individuals. In addition, we characterized the dynamic relationship between neural activation and the moment-to-moment fluctuations of mutual gaze, joint attention to objects, infant emotion, and adult speech prosody. This investigation advances what is currently known about how the brains and behaviors of infants both shape and reflect those of adults during real-life communication. communication development infancy naturalistic language functional near-infrared spectroscopy neural coupling open data open materials princeton university https://doi.org/10.13039/100006734 Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Award princeton university https://doi.org/10.13039/100006734 C.V. Starr Fellowship national institutes of health https://doi.org/10.13039/100000002 5DP1HD091948, R01HD095912, R03HD079779 special-property open-data special-property open-materials edited-state corrected-proof typesetter ts1 We thank Ariella Cohen, Alice Wang, Mia Sullivan, Sagi Jaffe-Dax, Eva Fourakis, and Carolyn Mazzei for assistance with data collection, behavioral coding, analysis feedback, and participant recruitment. Action Editor Rebecca Treiman served as action editor for this article. Author Contributions E. A. Piazza, C. Lew-Williams, and U. Hasson designed the experiment, E. A. Piazza and L. Hasenfratz collected the data, E. A. Piazza analyzed the data with feedback from U. Hasson and C. Lew-Williams. E. A. Piazza drafted the manuscript, and all authors edited the manuscript. ORCID iD Elise A. Piazza https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6729-8559 Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article. Funding This work was supported by the Princeton University C. V. Starr Fellowship (to E. A. Piazza), the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Award (to E. A. Piazza, U. Hasson, and C. Lew-Williams), National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant 5DP1HD091948 (to U. Hasson), and NIH Grants R01HD095912 and R03HD079779 (to C. Lew-Williams). Supplemental Material Additional supporting information can be found at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0956797619878698 Open Practices All data, analysis scripts, and materials needed to reproduce this study have been made publicly available via the Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/udxqp/ . The design and analysis plans for the experiment were not preregistered. The complete Open Practices Disclosure for this article can be found at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0956797619878698 . This article has received the badges for Open Data and Open Materials. More information about the Open Practices badges can be found at http://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/badges . Funding Information: We thank Ariella Cohen, Alice Wang, Mia Sullivan, Sagi Jaffe-Dax, Eva Fourakis, and Carolyn Mazzei for assistance with data collection, behavioral coding, analysis feedback, and participant recruitment. This work was supported by the Princeton University C. V. Starr Fellowship (to E. A. Piazza), the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Award (to E. A. Piazza, U. Hasson, and C. Lew-Williams), National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant 5DP1HD091948 (to U. Hasson), and NIH Grants R01HD095912 and R03HD079779 (to C. Lew-Williams). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2019.",
year = "2020",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1177/0956797619878698",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "31",
pages = "6--17",
journal = "Psychological Science",
issn = "0956-7976",
publisher = "SAGE Publications Inc.",
number = "1",
}