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Infant Visual Sustained Attention and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia
Abstract
Infants were studied cross-sectionally at 14, 20, and 26 weeks of age. They were presented with varying and complex patterns on a TV screen. Two-thirds of the presentations were accompanied by an "interrupting stimulus" in the periphery delayed in time from the onset of fixation on the central stimulus. The infants were not easily distracted from looking at the central stimulus when the presentation of the interrupting stimulus occurred at the point of maximal heart rate (HR) deceleration. However, if the presentation occurred at the end of the HR response, the infants were easily distracted. Infants with large amounts of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA; i.e., HR variability) in a baseline recording were less distractible during the deceleration-defined trials than were infants with low amounts of RSA. High-RSA infants also showed larger HR deceleration on these trials than did the low-RSA infants. These results are consistent with a model positing that sustained HR lowering during visual fixation is an index of active attention and that RSA is an index of voluntary, sustained attention in infants.
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“Heart-rate variability, or vagal tone, has been linked to several measures of cognitive and emotional processes involving attention and stimulus appraisal (Lacey & Lacey, 1958;Porges, Arnold, & Forbes, 1973;Richards, 1987;Wenger, 1941).”
From Infant and parent factors associated with early maternal sensitivity: A caregiver-attachment systems approach (2007) · cites this paper as Richards, 1987
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Items 101–141 of 141
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Maikranz, J. M., Colombo, J. A., Richman, W. A., & Frick, J. E. (2000) · Infant Behavior and Development · doi:10.1016/s0163-6383(01)00040-6 · Cited by 15
Kelly, S. J., & Richards, J. E. (1998) · Neurotoxicology and Teratology · doi:10.1016/s0892-0362(97)00090-1 · Cited by 15
“The respiratory sinus arrhythmia and the heart rate orienting response in humans does not become strongly correlated until 3 months of age (40).”
BackgroundSelf-citationDubreuil, E., Ditto, B., Dionne, G., Pihl, R. O., Tremblay, R. E., Boivin, M., & Pérusse, D. (2003) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/1469-8986.00103 · Cited by 15
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“experimenter went through the AQS with the mother, answered any questions, and confirmed that all cards were sorted appropriately following a protocol adapted from Teti and McGourty (1996) and Laible and Thompson (1998).”
MethodPeripheral Stimulus Localization by Infants of Moving Stimuli on Complex Backgrounds
Mallin, B. M., & Richards, J. E. (2011) · Infancy · doi:10.1111/j.1532-7078.2011.00109.x · Cited by 13
“peripheral stimulus (Goldberg et al., 1997; Hicks & Richards, 1997; Richards, 1987) or decreases the probability of localizing a stimulus presented for a fixed interval of time (Aslin & Salapatek, 1975; Hicks & Richards, 1998; Hunter & Richards, 2003; Richards & Hunter, 1997).”
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Domsch, H., Thomas, H., & Lohaus, A. (2010) · Infant Behavior and Development · doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2010.03.008 · Cited by 13
Kelly, S. J., & Richards, J. E. (1997) · Physiology & Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0031-9384(96)00365-4 · Cited by 13
“Although clearly dependent upon peripheral mechanisms, RSA has also been shown to be strongly correlated to heart rate and behavioral indices of attention (42,43,45).”
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Resch, F., & Möhler, E. (2001) · Heidelberger Jahrbücher · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-56780-3_6 · Cited by 7
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Developmental Changes in the Duration of Attention to Unfamiliar Stimuli in the Rat
Hayne, H., Richardson, R., & Campbell, B. A. (1992) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.1992.tb01700.x · Cited by 12
Childhood Abuse, Body Shame, and Addictive Plastic Surgery
Constantian, M. B. (2018) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315657721 · Cited by 12
Dietrich, A., Althaus, M., Hartman, C. A., Buitelaar, J. K., Mindera, R. B., van den Hoofdakker, B. J., & Hoekstra, P. J. (2012) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2012.03.008 · Cited by 11
Development of Covert Orienting in Young Infants
Richards, J. E. (2005) · Neurobiology of Attention · doi:10.1016/b978-012375731-9/50018-5 · Cited by 11
“In this case, localization percentage of a fixed-duration peripheral stimulus is likely (Richards, 1987), or localization of a continuing stimulus occurs quickly (Richards, 1987).”
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Maitha, C., Goode, J. C., Maulucci, D., Lasassmeh, S. M. S., Yu, C., Smith, L. B., & Borjon, J. I. (2020) · Behavior Research Methods · doi:10.3758/s13428-020-01394-4 · Cited by 13
“It is a more complex state that includes holding objects and body stillness (Yu & Smith, 2012) which likely induces changes in heart rate and breathing (Lacey, 1972; Norman& Shallice, 1986; Porges & Raskin, 1969; Richards, 1985, 1987).”
BackgroundWass, S. V., Smith, C. G., Clackson, K., & Mirza, F. U. (2020) · Developmental Science · doi:10.1111/desc.13059 · Cited by 9
Eschman, B., Todd, J. T., Sarafraz, A., Edgar, E. V., Petrulla, V., McNew, M. E., Gomez, W., & Bahrick, L. E. (2022) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.731618 · Cited by 10
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“Richards (1989) reported larger decelerations to visual”
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“…using multiple measures include efforts combining looking-time methods with manual exploration to study curiosity (Perez & Feigenson, 2022; Stahl & Feigenson, 2015) and measuring infants' attentional profile using both looking time and heart-rate variability (Richards, 1987; Wass et al., 2018).”
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O’Sullivan, L. P., & Berthier, N. E. (2003) · Developmental Psychobiology · doi:10.1002/dev.10102 · Cited by 5
Infant Cognitive Psychophysiology
Richards, J. E. (1995) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-9044-3_2 · Cited by 5
Self-citationZhang, Y., Martinez-Cedillo, A. P., Mason, H. T., Vuong, Q. C., Garcia-de-Soria, M. C., Mullineaux, D. R., Knight, M. I., & Geangu, E. (2025) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-025-96794-x · Cited by 3
“Previous studies have shown that respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a separate HRV measure within the respiratory frequency range, predicts the extent of HR deceleration entering the attentional phase 76 .”
(1994) · Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development · doi:10.1111/j.1540-5834.1994.tb01288.x · Cited by 3
An Evaluation of the Efficacy of Selected Nonpharmacologic Pain Interventions in Infants
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Self-citationAn Evaluation of the Efficacy of Selected Nonpharmacologic Pain Interventions in Infants
Greenberg, C. S. (1997) · doi:10.22371/07.1997.05 · Cited by 2
Ten-month-old infants' retrieval of familiar information from short-term memory
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A Neurorobotics Approach to Investigating Word Learning Behaviors
Veale, R. (2013) · IGI Global eBooks · doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2973-8.ch012 · Cited by 1
Wass, S. V. (2017) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/190108 · Cited by 1
“Other studies have also found that, in older infants, infants with higher RSA showed larger heart rate decelerations during sustained attention (Richards & Casey, 1991; Richards, 1987, Richards, 1985b).”
ResultDevelopmental Disorders of Attention
Cohen, R. A. (2013) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-0-387-72639-7_18 · Cited by 1
McFayden, T. C., Panneton, R., Bruce, M. D., & Taylor, C. (2020) · Infant Behavior and Development · doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101431
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Cardiac vagal tone indices of temperamental reactivity and behavioral regulation in young children
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Metadata
- Authors
- Richards, J. E.
- Affiliations
- University of South Carolina (US)
- Corresponding author
- Richards, John E.
- ORCID
- Richards, John E.
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1987-04
- Volume
- 58
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 488
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2121958234
- Cited by
- 180
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 4.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (5r23hd018942-02)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1 R23 HD18942-01A)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Neuroscience of respiration and sleep
- Keywords
- respiratory sinus arrhythmia, heart rate variability, distractibility, visual fixation, heart rate deceleration, voluntary attention, infant development, attentional control
- MeSH terms
- Arrhythmia, Sinus, Attention, Fixation, Ocular, Heart Rate, Humans, Infant, Respiration, Time Factors, Visual Perception
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