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2016 ; 11
(5
): e0154283
Nephropedia Template TP
PLoS One
2016[]; 11
(5
): e0154283
PMID27191845
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The attention-grabbing quality of the infant cry is well recognized, but how the
emotional valence of infant vocal signals affects adult cognition and cortical
activity has heretofore been unknown. We examined the effects of two contrasting
infant vocalizations (cries vs. laughs) on adult performance on a Stroop task
using a cross-modal distraction paradigm in which infant distractors were vocal
and targets were visual. Infant vocalizations were presented before (Experiment
1) or during each Stroop trial (Experiment 2). To evaluate the influence of
infant vocalizations on cognitive control, neural responses to the Stroop task
were obtained by measuring electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related
potentials (ERPs) in Experiment 1. Based on the previously demonstrated existence
of negative arousal bias, we hypothesized that cry vocalizations would be more
distracting and invoke greater conflict processing than laugh vocalizations.
Similarly, we expected participants to have greater difficulty shifting attention
from the vocal distractors to the target task after hearing cries vs. after
hearing laughs. Behavioral results from both experiments showed a cry
interference effect, in which task performance was slower with cry than with
laugh distractors. Electrophysiology data further revealed that cries more than
laughs reduced attention to the task (smaller P200) and increased conflict
processing (larger N450), albeit differently for incongruent and congruent
trials. Results from a correlation analysis showed that the amplitudes of P200
and N450 were inversely related, suggesting a reciprocal relationship between
attention and conflict processing. The findings suggest that cognitive control
processes contribute to an attention bias to infant signals, which is modulated
in part by the valence of the infant vocalization and the demands of the
cognitive task. The findings thus support the notion that infant cries elicit a
negative arousal bias that is distracting; they also identify, for the first
time, the neural dynamics underlying the unique influence that infant cries and
laughs have on cognitive control.
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