Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T06:44:20.310Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An event-related potential study of the impact of institutional rearing on face recognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2005

SUSAN W. PARKER  and
CHARLES A. NELSON
SUSAN W. PARKER
Affiliation:
Randolph-Macon College
CHARLES A. NELSON
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded to brief images of caregivers' and strangers' faces for 72 institutionalized children (IG), ages 7–32 months, and compared with ERPs from 33 children, ages 8–32 months, who had never been institutionalized. All children resided in Bucharest, Romania. Prominent differences in four ERP components were observed: early negative (N170), early positive (P250), midlatency negative (Nc), and positive slow wave (PSW). For all but the P250, the amplitude of these components was larger in the never instituionalized group than the institutionalized group; this pattern was reversed for the P250. Typical effects of the Nc (amplitude greater to stranger vs. caregiver) were observed in both groups; in contrast, the IG group showed an atypical pattern in the PSW. These findings are discussed in the context of the role of experience in influencing the neural circuitry putatively involved in recognizing familiar and novel faces.The work reported in this manuscript was supported by a research network (Early Experience and Brain Development) funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (Charles A. Nelson, Network Chair). The Bucharest Early Intervention Core Group consists of Charles H. Zeanah, Anna T. Smyke, and Sebastian F. Koga (Tulane University); Charles A. Nelson (Harvard Medical School); Susan W. Parker (Randolph-Macon College); Nathan A. Fox (University of Maryland); Peter J. Marshall (Temple University); and Hermi R. Woodward (University of Pittsburgh/MacArthur Research Networks). The authors acknowledge the many invaluable contributions of their Romanian partner institutions, the SERA Romania Foundation, the Institute of Maternal and Child Health, and the Bucharest Departments of Child Protection. They are also deeply grateful to their Romanian team, whose hard work and dedication has made this study possible and to Dana Johnson and Mary Jo Spencer for conducting the pediatric screens.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , September 2005 , pp. 621 - 639
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bauman, M., & Kemper, T. L. (1985). Histoanatomic observations of the brain in early infantile autism. Neurology 35, 866–874.Google Scholar
Carver, L. J., Dawson, G., Panagiotides, H., Meltzoff, A. N., McPartland, J., Gray, J., & Munson, J. (2003). Age-related differences in neural correlates of face recognition during the toddler and preschool years. Developmental Psychobiology 42, 148–159.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Cohen, D. J. (1995). Perspectives in developmental psychopathology. In D. Cicchetti & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology. New York: Wiley.
Chugani, H. T., Behen, M. E., Muzik, O., Juhász, C., Nagy, F., & Chugani, D. (2001). Local brain functional activity following early deprivation: A study of postinstitutionalized Romanian orphans. NeuroImage 14, 1290–1301.Google Scholar
Courchesne, E. (1978). Neurophysiological correlates of cognitive development: Changes in long-latency event-related potentials from childhood to adulthood. Electroencephalography Clinical Neurophysiology 45, 468–482.Google Scholar
Courchesne, E., Ganz, L., & Norcia, A. M. (1981). Event-related brain potentials to human faces in infants. Child Development 52, 804–811.Google Scholar
Critchley, H. D., Daly, E. M., Bullmore, E. T., Williams, S. C. R., Van Amelsvoort, T., Robertson, D. M., Rowe, A., Phillips, M., McAlonan, G., Howlin, P., & Murphy, D. G. M. (2000). The functional neuroanatomy of social behaviour: Changes in cerebral blood flow when people with autistic disorder process facial expressions. Brain 123, 2203–2212.Google Scholar
Dawson, G., Carver, L., Meltzoff, A. N., Panagiotides, H., McPartland, J., & Webb, S. (2002). Neural correlates of face and object recognition in young children with autism spectrum disorder, developmental delay, and typical development. Child Development 73, 700–717.Google Scholar
de Hann, M., & Nelson, C. A. (1997). Recognition of the mother's face by six-month-old infants: A neurobehavioral study. Child Development 68, 187–210.Google Scholar
de Hann, M., & Nelson, C. A. (1999). Brain activity differentiates face and object processing in 6-month-old infants. Developmental Psychology 35, 1113–1121.Google Scholar
Fisher, L., Ames, E. W., Chisholm, K., & Savoie, L. (1997). Problems reported by parents of Romanian orphans adopted to British Columbia. International Journal of Behavioral Development 20, 6–82.Google Scholar
Gunnar, M. R. (2001). Effects of early deprivation: Findings from orphanage-reared infants and children. In C. A. Nelson & M. Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Johnson, D. E. (2000). Medical and developmental sequelae of early childhood institutionalization in Romania. In C. A. Nelson (Vol. Ed.), The Minnesota symposia on child psychology: Vol. 31. Effects of early adversity on neurobehavioral development (pp. 113–162). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lins, O. G., Picton, T. W., Berg, P., & Scherg, M. (1993). Ocular artifacts in EEG and event-related potentials. I: Scalp topography. Brain Topography 6, 51–63.Google Scholar
Marshall, P. J., Fox, N. A., & The Bucharest Early Intervention Project Core Group. (2004). A comparison of the electroencephalogram between institutionalized and community children in Romania. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16, 1327–1338.Google Scholar
Miller, A., & Tomarken, A. J. (2001). Task-dependent changes in frontal brain asymmetry: Effects of incentive cues, outcome expectancies, and motor responses. Psychophysiology 38, 500–511.Google Scholar
Nelson, C. A. (2001). The development and neural bases of face recognition. Infant and Child Development 10, 3–18.Google Scholar
Nelson, C. A., & Collins, P. F. (1991). Event-related potential and looking-time analysis of infants' responses to familiar and novel event: Implications for visual recognition memory. Developmental Psychology 27, 50–58.Google Scholar
Nelson, C. A., & Monk, C. S. (2001). The use of event related potentials in the study of cognitive development. In C. A. Nelson & M. Luciana (Eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience (pp. 125–136). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Nelson, C. A., & Salapatek, P. (1986). Electrophysiological correlates of infant recognition memory. Child Development 57, 1483–1497.Google Scholar
O'Connor, T. G., Bredenkamp, D., & Rutter, M. (1999). Attachment disturbances and disorders in children exposed to early severe deprivation. Infant Mental Health Journal 20, 10–29.Google Scholar
Parker, S. W., Nelson, C. A., & The Bucharest Early Intervention Project Core Group. (2005). The impact of early institutional rearing on the ability to discriminate facial expressions of emotion: An event-related potential study. Child Development 76, 54–72.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., Cicchetti, D., Klorman, R., & Brumaghim, J. T. (1997). Cognitive brain event-related potentials and emotion processing in maltreated children. Child Development 68, 773–787.Google Scholar
Tanner, J. M. (1973). Physical growth and development. In J. O. Forfar & G. C. Arneil (Eds.), Textbook of pediatrics. London: Churchill Livingstone.
Zeanah, C. H., Nelson, C. A., Fox, N. A., Smyke, A. T., Marshall, P., Parker, S. W., & Koga, S. (2003). Designing research to study the effects of institutionalization on brain and behavioral development: The Bucharest Early Intervention Project. Development and Psychopathology 15, 885–907.Google Scholar