CEREBRAL ASYMMETRY AND THE INFANT'S PERCEPTION OF EMOTION.
Item
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Title
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CEREBRAL ASYMMETRY AND THE INFANT'S PERCEPTION OF EMOTION.
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Identifier
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AAI8614705
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identifier
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8614705
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Creator
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STIMMEL, BARBARA.
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Contributor
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Gerlad Turkewitz
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Date
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1986
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Experimental
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Abstract
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Two studies were done to assess cerebral asymmetry for processing of emotion in infants. Both experiments used split-screen tachistoscopic presentation of stimuli to six- to seven-month old infants with heart rate change as the dependent variable. In Experiment 1 subjects were presented with four habituating trials, each the face of a different adult with the same expression. The fifth trial was the presentation of yet another adult with a different expression from that in the habituating trials. Experiment 1 yielded no main effects. There was a significant interaction (p < .02) between visual field and order. It appears there was a priming effect such that increased deceleration occurred during stimulation of the visual field contralateral to that stimulated first. This occurred regardless of which visual field was stimulated first.;In Experiment 2, the habituation phase included six trials of identical stimuli (same face/same expression) with a seventh trial that was either same face/different expression, different face/same expression, or a change in both face and expression. Marginal significance (p < .06) for dishabituation was found on a repeated measures ANOVA. There was also a significant second order interaction (p < .01) between visual field, trial, and order of visual field stimulation. This interaction resembled that in Experiment 1 in that responding in the opposite visual field to that stimulated first produced greater deceleration than in the ipsilateral visual field.;While there was no explicit evidence of hemispheric asymmetry for the perception of affect in infants, the replication of interactions suggested priming effects of order of hemispheric engagement.;The dishabituation observed in the second experiment is the first reported example of the successful use of the split-screen method combined with the habituation paradigm with infants in order to measure asymmetry in the visual mode.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
