Characterizing pet experience in infancy & the relation to cognitive development

描述婴儿期宠物的经历

基本信息

批准号：
8207162
负责人：
LISA M OAKES
金额：
$ 7.11万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2011
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2011-12-01 至 2013-11-30
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Human-animal interactions have been studied for decades, characterizing the quality of such interactions and the effect they have on psychological functioning such as self-esteem and how people deal with grief. This work has extended to childhood, showing that many of the beneficial effects of relationships with companion animals observed with adults are also true in children. However, little is known about infants' relationships and interactions with animals, and how such experiences contribute to development. It is unknown, for example, how parents encourage or shield infants from interactions with companion animals, and whether interactions with animals contributes to infants' rapidly developing mental functioning. Therefore, a complete understanding of human-animal interactions, and how such interactions influence development, requires characterizing infants' experiences with companion animals. Characterizing infants' interactions and relationships with animals is also important because infant development is shaped by their experience-they learn the language they hear, the kind of faces they look at, and to interact with the kinds of objects in their environment. Moreover, differences in experience can have a profound effect on healthy development. Children who are raised in institutions, in poverty, or without a caring attentive caregiver have different developmental outcomes than children who are raised under other conditions. One common difference between children is the presence of pets in the home. Examining variations in infants' experience with pets, and how those variations contribute to their developing cognitions about animals, provides a model for systematically studying environmental influences on infant development as well as provides much needed information about the quality and quantity of infants' experience with companion animals. Although infants' perception of and learning about animal stimuli has been studied for decades, there has been little attempt to relate this learning to their experience with pets in the home. These previous studies have provided significant understanding into infants' basic perception of animals, revealing that by 3 to 4 months infants have sophisticated abilities to discriminate between, remember, categorize a wide variety of animals. Recently, infants' experience with pets in the home has been recognized as a potential contributor to this early development. This project will provide detailed information characterizing the quality and quantity of infants' interactions with animals through interviews with parents (Experiment 1), parental responses to questionnaires (Experiment 2), and observations in the home (Experiment 3). The effect of differences in infants' interactions will be examined by evaluating how infants with different experiences visually scan naturalistic scenes of infants in everyday activities in the presence of animals (Experiment 4). The results of these experiments will add to our understanding of human-animal interactions across the lifespan and begin to uncover the ways in which relationships with companion animals contributes to infants' development. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Human-animal interactions can have a profound effect on psychological functioning in children and adults, however we know little about the kinds of interactions young infants have with animals, or the effects of such interactions on infant development. Extreme differences in early experience can produce differences in developmental outcome. Thus, it is possible that infants who have pets-or who are encouraged to have relationships with companion animals-develop differently than infants who do not have pets. Understanding variations in infants' pet experiences, and how such variations contribute to infants' developing cognitions about animals, is therefore important for understanding the role of experience on infant development broadly, and for understanding how experience with companion animals in particular influences typical development. The knowledge gained from this project may be important for developing interventions to help provide critical experiences that will promote healthy development.

描述（由申请人提供）：人类与动物的相互作用已经研究了几十年，描述了这种相互作用的质量以及它们对心理功能（例如自尊和人们如何处理悲伤）的影响。这项工作一直延伸到儿童时期，表明在成人身上观察到的与伴侣动物关系的许多有益影响也适用于儿童。然而，人们对婴儿与动物的关系和互动以及这些经历如何促进发育知之甚少。例如，尚不清楚父母如何鼓励或阻止婴儿与伴侣动物互动，以及与动物的互动是否有助于婴儿快速发展的心理功能。因此，要全面了解人与动物的相互作用，以及这种相互作用如何影响发育，需要描述婴儿与伴侣动物的经历。描述婴儿与动物的互动和关系也很重要，因为婴儿的发展是由他们的经历决定的——他们学习听到的语言、看到的面孔以及与环境中的各种物体互动。此外，经验的差异会对健康发展产生深远的影响。在机构、贫困或没有细心照料者的情况下长大的儿童与在其他条件下长大的儿童有不同的发展结果。孩子之间的一个常见区别是家里有宠物。检查婴儿与宠物相处的经历的变化，以及这些变化如何促进他们对动物的认知发展，为系统地研究环境对婴儿发育的影响提供了一个模型，并提供了有关婴儿与同伴相处的经历的质量和数量的急需信息动物。尽管婴儿对动物刺激的感知和学习已经研究了几十年，但很少有人尝试将这种学习与他们与宠物相处的经历联系起来。家。先前的这些研究为婴儿对动物的基本感知提供了重要的了解，表明婴儿在 3 至 4 个月大时就具备了区分、记忆和分类各种动物的复杂能力。最近，婴儿在家中与宠物相处的经历被认为是其早期发育的潜在贡献者。该项目将通过对父母的访谈（实验1）、父母对问卷的回答（实验2）以及在家中的观察（实验3）来提供描述婴儿与动物互动的质量和数量的详细信息。将通过评估具有不同经历的婴儿如何在有动物存在的情况下在日常活动中视觉扫描婴儿的自然场景来检查婴儿互动差异的影响（实验4）。这些实验的结果将加深我们对人与动物在整个生命周期中相互作用的理解，并开始揭示与伴侣动物的关系如何促进婴儿的发育。公共卫生相关性：人与动物的相互作用会对儿童和成人的心理功能产生深远的影响，但是我们对幼儿与动物的相互作用类型或这种相互作用对婴儿发育的影响知之甚少。早期经历的极端差异可能会导致发育结果的差异。因此，养宠物的婴儿或被鼓励与伴侣动物建立关系的婴儿的发育可能与没有宠物的婴儿不同。因此，了解婴儿的宠物经历的差异，以及这些差异如何促进婴儿对动物的认知发展，对于广泛理解经验对婴儿发展的作用，以及了解与伴侣动物相处的经验如何影响典型的发展非常重要。从该项目中获得的知识对于制定干预措施可能很重要，以帮助提供促进健康发展的关键经验。