ABSTRACT

Brain-to-brain coupling during co-viewing of video stimuli reflects similar intersubjective mentalisation processes. During an everyday joint activity of watching video stimuli (television shows) with her child, an anxiously attached mother’s preoccupation with her child is likely to distract her from understanding the mental state of characters in the show. To test the hypothesis that reduced coupling in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) would be observed with increasing maternal attachment anxiety (MAA), we profiled mothers’ MAA using the Attachment Style Questionnaire and used functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess PFC coupling in 31 mother-child dyads while they watched three 1-min animation videos together. Reduced coupling was observed with increasing MAA in the medial right PFC cluster which is implicated in mentalisation processes. This result did not survive control analyses and should be taken as preliminary. Reduced coupling between anxiously-attached mothers and their children during co-viewing could undermine quality of shared experiences.

摘要

共同观看视频刺激期间的脑对脑耦合反映了类似的主体间心智化过程。在与孩子一起观看视频刺激（电视节目）的日常联合活动中，焦虑依恋的母亲对孩子的全神贯注可能会分散她对节目中人物心理状态的理解。为了验证随着母亲依恋焦虑 (MAA) 的增加会观察到内侧前额叶皮层 (PFC) 耦合减少的假设，我们使用依恋风格问卷调查了母亲的 MAA，并使用功能性近红外光谱 (fNIRS) 来评估 PFC当他们一起观看三个 1 分钟的动画视频时，将 31 个母子配对。随着与心理化过程有关的内侧右侧 PFC 簇中 MAA 的增加，观察到耦合减少。该结果未能通过对照分析，应作为初步结果。在共同观看期间，焦虑依恋的母亲和她们的孩子之间的耦合减少可能会破坏共享体验的质量。