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Maternal sensitivity in response to infant distress is related to a number of physiological processes, including electrocortical activity and activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Several studies have examined these systems in isolation, but limited work to date has investigated how they may moderate one another in relation to maternal behavior. The current exploratory study aimed to investigate the interactive effect of the late positive potential (LPP) and skin conductance level (SCL) on observed maternal sensitivity to distress. Ninety-five mothers of 6- to 12-month-old infants participated in two reactivity tasks measuring their LPP and SCL responses to child crying stimuli. Maternal sensitivity to distress was coded from video-recorded mother-infant interactions. Results showed a significant interaction effect, such that LPP reactivity to infant crying was positively related to maternal sensitivity to distress among mothers with relatively low SCL reactivity. The findings highlight the importance of examining multiple systems when characterizing the physiological basis of maternal behavior., (© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Parent-infant interaction is known to be influenced bidirectionally by parent and infant characteristics. However, it is unclear whether infant temperament affects parents' neural responses to infant stimuli. 85 infants (6-12 months) were filmed in distress-eliciting tasks, which were coded for infants' negative affect. Mothers' reported infant affect was obtained from the Infant Behavior Questionnaire Very Short Form-Revised. Mothers' EEG activity was recorded while passively viewing photos of own, familiarized, and unfamiliar infants. Multiple regression indicated that mothers who reported greater infant negative affect showed a smaller difference in the late positive potential (LPP) response to own infant versus familiarized infant, controlling for researcher-coded infant negative affect. The findings suggest that parents' perceptions of their infant's temperament, but not independent measures of infant temperament, are related to electrocortical indices of emotional attention., (© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)