Abstract
Despite increasing emphasis on emergent brain-behavior patterns supporting language, cognitive, and socioemotional development in toddlerhood, methodologic challenges impede their characterization. Toddlers are notoriously difficult to engage in brain research, leaving a developmental window in which neural processes are understudied. Further, electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potential paradigms at this age typically employ structured, experimental tasks that rarely reflect formative naturalistic interactions with caregivers. Here, we introduce and provide proof of concept for a new “Social EEG” paradigm, in which parent–toddler dyads interact naturally during EEG recording. Parents and toddlers sit at a table together and engage in different activities, such as book sharing or watching a movie. EEG is time locked to the video recording of their interaction. Offline, behavioral data are microcoded with mutually exclusive engagement state codes. From 216 sessions to date with 2- and 3-year-old toddlers and their parents, 72% of dyads successfully completed the full Social EEG paradigm, suggesting that it is possible to collect dual EEG from parents and toddlers during naturalistic interactions. In addition to providing naturalistic information about child neural development within the caregiving context, this paradigm holds promise for examination of emerging constructs such as brain-to-brain synchrony in parents and children.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | e22240 |
| Journal | Developmental Psychobiology |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2022 |
Funding
We gratefully acknowledge funding for this work from NIH grants R01DC016273 (E. S. N. and L. S. W.), R01MH107652 (L. S. W.), and R21DC017210 (E. S. N.). Research reported in this publication was supported, in part, by grant T32NS047987 and the NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, grant number UL1TR001422. We also acknowledge support from the Undergraduate Research Grant Program, which is administered by Northwestern University's Office of Undergraduate Research. The conclusions, opinions, and other statements in this publication are the authors’ and not necessarily those of the sponsoring institutions. We thank our collaborators, consultants, and research assistants on this program of research: Susan Perlman, Yuri Jo, Winnie Liang, Lauren Hampton, Maranda Jones, Kamila Postolowicz, Emma Baime, Skylar Ozoh, Soujin (Jinnie) Choi, Silvia Clement-Lam, Kiera Cook, Amy Biel, Ewa Gut, Hannah Stroup, Debby Zemlock, Margaret Briggs-Gowan, Amelie Petitclerc, Michael Murias, and Lloyd Smith. We thank the participating families for their time. We gratefully acknowledge funding for this work from NIH grants R01DC016273 (E. S. N. and L. S. W.), R01MH107652 (L. S. W.), and R21DC017210 (E. S. N.). Research reported in this publication was supported, in part, by grant T32NS047987 and the NIH's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, grant number UL1TR001422. We also acknowledge support from the Undergraduate Research Grant Program, which is administered by Northwestern University's Office of Undergraduate Research. The conclusions, opinions, and other statements in this publication are the authors’ and not necessarily those of the sponsoring institutions. We thank our collaborators, consultants, and research assistants on this program of research: Susan Perlman, Yuri Jo, Winnie Liang, Lauren Hampton, Maranda Jones, Kamila Postolowicz, Emma Baime, Skylar Ozoh, Soujin (Jinnie) Choi, Silvia Clement‐Lam, Kiera Cook, Amy Biel, Ewa Gut, Hannah Stroup, Debby Zemlock, Margaret Briggs‐Gowan, Amelie Petitclerc, Michael Murias, and Lloyd Smith. We thank the participating families for their time.
Keywords
- EEG
- hyperscanning
- neurodevelopment
- parent–child interaction
- synchrony
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Behavioral Neuroscience
- Developmental Biology