Social visual stimuli increase infants suck response: A preliminary study.

This study investigated whether visual stimuli (FACES vs. CARS) combined with the presence of maternal scent can influence suck patterning in healthy infants. Fifteen healthy full-term infants (six months and younger) were exposed to their mother's scent during a visual preference paradigm cons...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Emily Zimmerman, Courtney DeSousa
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2018-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6226186?pdf=render
Description
Summary:This study investigated whether visual stimuli (FACES vs. CARS) combined with the presence of maternal scent can influence suck patterning in healthy infants. Fifteen healthy full-term infants (six months and younger) were exposed to their mother's scent during a visual preference paradigm consisting of FACES vs. CARS stimuli while sucking on a custom research pacifier. Infants looked significantly longer to the FACES compared to CARS, p = .041. Repeated Measures ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for non-nutritive suck (NNS) bursts and visual stimuli (p = .001) with the largest differences evident between FACES and when the infant looked away from the visual stimuli (p = 0.008) as well as between FACES and CARS (p = 0.026). These preliminary findings suggest that infants have more suck attempts when looking at FACES in the presence of maternal scent thereby indicating potent links between visual preference and suck behavior.
ISSN:1932-6203