Presentation Information
[P1-30]Investigating heart–eye coupling during active visual search in early infancy: a planned study
*Akane Hisada1, Tomoko Isomura1 (1. Nagoya University (Japan))
Keywords:
Eye movements,Cardiac cycle,Baroreceptor,Systole,Saccades
Humans actively explore and perceive their environment. Recent studies suggest that the timing of exploratory movements and subsequent sensory processing is regulated by a predictive mechanism tied to the cardiac cycle, whereby the central nervous system uses internally generated baroreceptor signals conveying blood-pressure information to modulate external sensory processing (Galvez-Pol et al., 2020). In our recent study, using eye movements as a proxy for exploratory and perceptual behavior, we found that rapid eye movements for exploration (saccades) tend to occur immediately after a heartbeat (during systole), whereas sustained fixations associated with perception predominantly occur during the subsequent diastolic phase (Hisada & Isomura, in prep).
To investigates the developmental emergence of this heart–eye coupling, we adapted our adult task into an infant-friendly, non-verbal visual search task. Infants were presented with an attractive image that was initially covered with a black mask, and spontaneously uncovered it by directing their gaze to masked region, revealing the underlying image. We simultaneously recorded the infants’ electrocardiogram (ECG) during the task. We hypothesize that heart-eye coupling emerges in parallel with the development of primitive self-processing in the first year of life. Data collection with early infants is ongoing, and will be complete by the time of the conference. We will present the results of circular-phase analyses of eye-movement timing relative to the cardiac cycle, and discuss our findings in terms of baroreceptor-mediated self-related processing.
To investigates the developmental emergence of this heart–eye coupling, we adapted our adult task into an infant-friendly, non-verbal visual search task. Infants were presented with an attractive image that was initially covered with a black mask, and spontaneously uncovered it by directing their gaze to masked region, revealing the underlying image. We simultaneously recorded the infants’ electrocardiogram (ECG) during the task. We hypothesize that heart-eye coupling emerges in parallel with the development of primitive self-processing in the first year of life. Data collection with early infants is ongoing, and will be complete by the time of the conference. We will present the results of circular-phase analyses of eye-movement timing relative to the cardiac cycle, and discuss our findings in terms of baroreceptor-mediated self-related processing.