Project Details
Projekt
Neurocognitive mechanisms of uninstructed dynamic belief updating and pre-clinically relevant interindividual differences in infancy
Applicant
Professor Dr. Ulf Liszkowski
Subject Area
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 461947532
Background: Statistical learning mediates the developmental phase of infancy, which is shaped by temperament and social interactions. High reactivity is linked to later risks for anxiety, while responsive interactions enhance social development. Still little is known about infants’ statistical learning in volatile environments and the neurocognitive mechanisms of prediction error (PE) and dynamic belief updating (DynBU). Also, the relations between DynBU in infancy and differences in temperament and social-interactional experiences as sources of potentially maladaptive, clinically-relevant development have remained unexplored. Infants are a test case to investigate natural incidental learning. While uninstructed incidental learning is ubiquitous, it is currently not well understood even in adults.Aims: We investigate (i) infants’ neurocognitive mechanisms with pupil responses to discrete violations of expectations in deterministic scenarios, and to continuous PE under expected uncertainty; (ii) infants’ DynBU in response to change points (CP) during unexpected uncertainty, its relation to cortical network reset, and uninstructed incidental DynBU in adults; (iii) developmentally relevant interindividual differences related to social interaction and pre-clinical dimensions of temperament.Hypotheses: Infancy may be characterized by a relative underresponsiveness to updating. Behavioral inhibition and high reactivity should relate to overadjusting DynBU. Reduced rates of parent-infant interactions should indicate decreased experiences of certainty and lead to overadjustment in DynBU, in interaction with temperament. Infants’ initial arousal should decrease with increasingly expected uncertainty, and reactions should be sensitive to parametric PE. CPs should lead to increased arousal and to marked changes in EEG power and cortical network activity. If uninstructed DynBU recruits similar mechanisms as explicit instructed DynBU, adult data should fit the known cognitive models. Planned methods: We adopt the RU’s task to an incidental visual prediction paradigm for 1-year-old infants. Stimuli can become expected either due to habituation, or statistical learning of a distribution, or updated beliefs about changes in the distribution. We will measure looking times, pupillary change, ERPs and oscillations in alpha and theta power bands in frontal and dorsal brain networks. Concurrently, we will collect behavioral, neurophysiological, and questionnaire measures on infants’ temperament and social interaction. We will use the method with adults to provide data for computational model comparisons.Expected impact: The project reveals ontogenetic origins and neurocognitive mechanisms of DynBU as starting point of further development. It provides insights into ontogenetic sources of potentially maladaptive clinically relevant development. It advances modelling and provides ecologically valid insights into uninstructed incidental DynBU.
DFG Programme
Research Units
