Biology subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Azhari, A..
Withdrawal StatementThe authors have withdrawn this manuscript because the authors discovered a fundamental error in the article. Therefore, the authors do not wish this work to be cited as reference for the project. If you have any questions, please contact the corresponding author.
Inter-subject synchronisation reflects the entrainment of two individuals to each others brain signals during passive joint tasks. Within the parent-child dyad, the temporal coordination of signals indicates an attunement to each others emotional states. Despite the ubiquity with which parents and their children watch screen media together, no study has investigated intersubject synchronisation in father-child dyads during such a co-viewing activity. The present study examined whether father-child dyads would exhibit unique inter-subject synchronisation during co-viewing of narrative visual scenes that is unique to the dyad and hence would not be observed in control dyads (i.e. randomly paired signals). Hyperscanning fNIRS was used to record the prefrontal cortex (PFC) signals of 29 fathers and their preschool-aged children (11 girls, 18 boys) as each pair engaged in a typical activity of watching childrens shows together. Three 1-min video clips from "Brave", "Peppa Pig" and "The Incredibles" were presented to each dyad and childrens ratings of video positivity and familiarity were obtained afterwards. PFC activity was analysed according to four clusters: medial left, medial right, frontal left and frontal right clusters. Results from synchrony analyses demonstrated that true father-child dyads showed significantly greater inter-subject synchronisation than control dyads, especially in the medial left cluster during the emotionally arousing conflict scene. Dyads with older fathers displayed less synchrony and older fathers, compared to younger ones, were also found to exhibit greater activity in the frontal right cluster. These findings point to a unique inter-subject synchronisation that exists in father-child relationships during shared co-viewing of narrative scenes which could be potentially modulated by parental age.
The prevalence of criticism in everyday social situations, and its empirically demonstrated association with psychopathology, highlight the importance of understanding neural mechanisms underlying the perception and response of individuals to criticism. However, neuroimaging studies to date have been limited largely to maternal criticism. The present study aims to investigate neural responses to criticism originating from three different relationship types: romantic partners, friends, and parents. Perceived criticism ratings for these relationships from 49 participants were collected. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to measure changes in oxygenated haemoglobin levels in the prefrontal cortex when participants read vignettes describing three different scenarios of criticism. Participants were randomly assigned to 3 groups where the given description of the relationship of the protagonist to the source of criticism for each vignette was randomised. A significant interaction between relationship type and perceived criticism ratings for mothers was found in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Compared to low perceived criticism, high perceived criticism individuals showed increased activation reading vignettes describing criticism from romantic partners and parents but decreased activation for those from friends. Findings contribute to understanding neural responses to criticism as observed from a third-party perspective. Future studies can look into differentiating neural responses of personalised experiences of criticism and third-party observations.
Synchrony in developmental science reflects the coordination of mother and child to the same mental state. Mentalisation processes are influenced by individual attachment styles. A mother with an anxious-related attachment style tends to engage in emotional mentalisation that relies on her childs social cues. During an everyday joint activity of watching television shows together, we hypothesised that anxiously-attached mothers are less able to match their mental state to characters in the shows as their attention is likely detracted from the show and directed towards the child. We predict that this mismatch in mothers and childs emotional states would be reflected in reduced dyadic brain-to-brain synchrony. To test this hypothesis, we profiled mothers Maternal Anxiety score using the Preoccupation and Need for Approval subscales of the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and used functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning with 33 mother-child dyads to measure prefrontal cortex (PFC) synchrony while the dyads watched three 1-min animation videos together. Greater Maternal Anxiety is associated with less synchrony in the medial right prefrontal cluster implicated in mentalisation processes. Anxiously-attached mothers appear to exhibit less brain-to-brain synchrony with their child which suggests differences in intersubjective shared experiences that potentially undermines the quality of bonding during everyday joint activities.