Attention in Young Infants: A Developmental Psychophysiological Perspective

Abstract

This chapter reviews the development of attention in young infants, emphasizing heart rate changes in psychophysiological experiments as a measure of an arousal brain system. The neural systems affecting attention that may be indexed by psychophysiological measures are briefly reviewed. Heart rate, electroencephalogram (EEG), event-related potentials (ERP), and other physiological measures are reviewed that have been used for the study of attention development in young infants. The developmental changes in infant attention are related to changes occurring in the neural systems underlying attention. Several studies are reviewed that show how heart rate may be used as a measure of a general arousal system in young infants.