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Intraindividual and Interindividual Differences in Spontaneous Eye Blinking: Relationships to Working Memory Performance and Frontal EEG Asymmetry
Author(s) -
Bacher Leigh F.,
Retz Shirley,
Lindon Courtney,
Bell Martha Ann
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
infancy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.361
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1532-7078
pISSN - 1525-0008
DOI - 10.1111/infa.12164
Subject(s) - psychology , electroencephalography , working memory , tonic (physiology) , cognition , dopamine , developmental psychology , audiology , asymmetry , neuroscience , cognitive psychology , medicine , physics , quantum mechanics
The rate and timing of spontaneous eye blinking ( SB ) may be used to explore mechanisms of cognitive activity in infancy. In particular, SB rate is believed to reflect some dimensions of dopamine function; therefore, we hypothesized that SB rate would relate to working memory performance and to frontal electroencephalogram ( EEG ) asymmetry. Forty, 10‐month‐old infants completed an A‐not‐B task while SB and EEG were measured throughout. We found that SB rate varied across phases of the task, variability in SB rate was positively related to working memory performance, and frontal EEG asymmetry was related to individual differences in the rate of SB . Results provide indirect, but convergent support for the hypothesis that SB rate reflects dopamine function early in human development. As such, these results have implications for understanding the tonic and phasic effects of dopamine on cognitive activity early in human development.