Physiological Self‐Regulation and Information Processing in Infancy: Cardiac Vagal Tone and Habituation

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This study investigates the role of physiological self‐regulation (cardiac vagal tone) in information processing (habituation) in 81 infants. Nucleus ambiguus vagal tone (Vna, a measure of respiratory sinus arrhythmia) was used to index cardiac vagal tone. Physiological self‐regulation was operationalized as the change in Vna from a baseline period of measurement to habituation. Decreases in Vna consistently related to habituation efficiency, operationalized as accumulated looking time (ALT), in all infants twice at 2 months and twice at 5 months; however, this relation was accounted for by infants who met an habituation criterion on each task. Among habituators, shorter lookers also had greater Vna suppression during habituation. Within‐age and between‐age suppression of vagal tone predicted ALT, but ALT did not predict suppression of vagal tone. Physiological self‐regulation provided by the vagal system appears to play a role in information processing in infancy as indexed by habituation. Les grandes pensées viennent du coeur. — Vauvenargués (1746), Maxime 127

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: