20284
Empathy Emerges: Attention and Affective Responses to Maternal and Experimenter Distress in Infants at Risk for Autism at 12- and 15-Months
Emerging at 12 months, empathy appears to be relatively stable over time, consistent across contexts, and predictive of prosocial behaviors. Empathy consists of both attending to a person in distress (attention) and displaying concern (affect; Knafo et al., 2008). High-risk infants (by virtue of having a sibling with ASD; HR) later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were less attentive and displayed fewer affective responses to an experimenter in distress than non-ASD infants (Hutman et al., 2010). Interestingly, infants may be more responsive to mother’s distress versus a stranger’s (Young et al, 1999), but when these differences emerge and if such differences occur in HR infants have yet to be explored.
Objectives:
Identify changes in attention and affect: (1) toward other’s distress between 12 and 15 months across risk groups, and (2) toward experimenter versus maternal distress within risk groups.
Methods:
Nineteen HR infants and 21 low-risk (LR) infants were administered a standard empathy paradigm by both an experimenter and their mother at 12 and 15 months. Attention and affective response to distress were coded from video using an existing coding scheme (Hutman et al., 2010). Linear mixed-effects (LME) models were conducted separately for attention and affect scores as outcome variables, with age and risk as the independent variables for (1) maternal distress (MomDistress) and (2) experimenter distress (ExpDistress; Table 1). Additional LME models were conducted separately for each risk group, with age and condition (MomDistress/ExpDistress) as the independent variables (Table 2).
Results:
Affect was significantly different between risk groups, such that the HR group displayed less affect in both conditions. Additionally, there was a significant increase in affect over time for ExpDistress, but not for MomDistress. Within the HR group, no significant main effects of age or condition were found. In contrast, within the LR group, there was a significant age by condition interaction, such that affect increased over time for ExpDistress. Attention toward ExpDistress was significantly different between risk groups, such that the HR group paid less attention. For MomDistress, there was a significant age by condition interaction, which indicated attention decreased over time for the HR group and increased for the LR group. Within the LR group, there was a significant difference in their attention between conditions, such that they attended less to MomDistress.
Conclusions:
Results of this study suggest differences in empathic responses to others’ distress are present as early as 12 and 15 months, when comparing HR and LR infants. The HR infants displayed weaker affect and attended less to others’ distress than their LR peers. Furthermore, while LR infants’ affect increased between 12 and 15 months, HR infants’ affect did not change (ExpDistress) or decreased (MomDistress). The HR infants also did not differ in their affect and attention to experimenter versus maternal distress, while their LR peers showed increased affect to experimenter distress and increased attention responses to maternal distress over time. These deficits may be an early marker of social cognitive impairment and may be an important target for early intervention.