NICU infants are reported to have diminished social orientation and increased risk of socio-communicative disorders. In this eye tracking study, we used a preference for upright compared to inverted faces as a gauge of social interest in high medical risk full- and pre-term NICU infants. We examined the effects of facial motion and audio-visual redundancy on face and eye/mouth preferences across the first year. Upright and inverted baby faces were simultaneously presented in a paired-preference paradigm with motion and synchronized vocalization varied. NICU risk factors including birth weight, sex, and degree of CNS injury were examined. Overall, infants preferred the more socially salient upright faces, making this the first report, to our knowledge, of an upright compared to inverted face preference among high medical risk NICU infants. Infants with abnormalities on cranial ultrasound displayed lower social interest, i.e. less of a preferential interest in upright faces, when viewing static faces. However, motion selectively increased their upright face looking time to a level equal that of infants in other CNS injury groups. We also observed an age-related sex effect suggesting higher risk in NICU males. Females increased their attention to the mouth in upright faces across the first year, especially between 7–10 months, but males did not. Although vocalization increased diffuse attention toward the screen, contrary to our predictions, there was no evidence that the audio-visual redundancy embodied in a vocalizing face focused additional attention on upright faces or mouths. This unexpected result may suggest a vulnerability in response to talking faces among NICU infants that could potentially affect later verbal and socio-communicative development.

据报道，新生儿重症监护病房婴儿的社会取向减弱，社会交往障碍的风险增加。在这项眼动追踪研究中，我们使用直立与倒立面孔的偏好作为衡量对高医疗风险的足月和早产 NICU 婴儿的社会兴趣的衡量标准。我们检查了第一年面部运动和视听冗余对面部和眼睛/嘴巴偏好的影响。直立和倒立的婴儿脸同时呈现在配对偏好范式中，运动和同步发声各不相同。检查了新生儿重症监护病房的危险因素，包括出生体重、性别和中枢神经系统损伤程度。总体而言，婴儿更喜欢在社会上更突出的直立面孔，据我们所知，这是第一份关于高医疗风险 NICU 婴儿中直立与倒立面孔偏好的报告。头颅超声检查异常的婴儿在观察静态面孔时表现出较低的社会兴趣，即对直立面孔的优先兴趣较少。然而，运动选择性地将他们直立面部的观察时间增加到与其他中枢神经系统损伤组的婴儿相同的水平。我们还观察到与年龄相关的性别效应，表明 NICU 男性的风险更高。在第一年，尤其是在 7-10 个月之间，女性增加了对直立面部嘴巴的关注，而男性则没有。尽管发声增加了对屏幕的分散注意力，但与我们的预测相反，没有证据表明发声面孔中包含的视听冗余将额外的注意力集中在直立的面孔或嘴巴上。