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Have you ever passed by a room in hurry, and watched a baby’s sad face, and then automatically left everything at hand to tend to the kid in distress? While most may perceive this as a natural thing to do, a recent study says that women are subconsciously more tuned to babies in distress, making them have a stronger caregiving character. Also read | Here's why mother's emotional, mental health is as important as physical health Findings of the study: The study used eye-tracking technology and subliminal exposure to emotional facial expressions to understand the emotions that infant distress can trigger in women. The researchers observed that women often attended to babies in distress, even before they could consciously understand why they are doing it.
Infant faces in distress can trigger more emotions in them than happy baby faces and sad adult faces. The study was conducted on 114 women, divided into two groups: 57 mothers of infants between three and seven months old, and 57 women who had never given birth. They were asked to fixate on a screen and then for 17 milliseconds, a happy or a sad face was shown, either of a baby or of an adult.
17 milliseconds are considered to be the threshold of conscious awareness. Also read | Study shows the hidden cost of a mother's depression on her toddler, how it affects their emotional development It was observed that participants took longer to disengage their attention after watching a sad baby face compared to a happy baby face or a sad adult face. This proved that sad infant faces could hold the attention of a woman for a longer time than that of a happy baby face or a sad adult face.
Study author Elena Guida, a psychotherapist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Milano-Bicocca, said, “We were fascinated by the idea that certain emotional signals—like a baby’s cry or sad face—might be so evolutionarily important that our brain picks up on them even when we’re not consciously aware of them. We wanted to understand whether this unconscious sensitivity applies specifically to sad baby faces, which may be particularly relevant for caregiving behavior. Moreover, we wanted to understand if such sensitivity was specific for mothers.
” Also read | How to protect mother’s pre and post-childbirth emotional health? Expert answers Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition..
