Results of the study: “How does paternal odor influence emotion perception in infancy?”

In our research project, we investigated how 7-month-old babies respond to happy and fearful faces—and whether the scent of their own father plays a role. For this purpose, we analyzed the babies’ brain activity (so-called EEG measurements).

We wanted to find out to what extent the paternal scent elicits a reaction to frightened faces similar to that already demonstrated for maternal scent. Earlier studies had already shown that maternal scent has a kind of “calming effect” on 7-month-old babies when they look at frightened faces (discernible as an altered brain response). This effect was not observable when the babies smelled another, unfamiliar woman.

For paternal scent, a somewhat different, more complex picture emerged.
We were able to observe that it matters whether the babies saw female or male faces. In this context, it appears above all that paternal scent has an effect on male faces—namely, that the babies respond particularly strongly to the fearful emotion.

  • Babies respond particularly strongly to fearful male faces when they perceive the scent of their own father.
  • This response is evident in the brain activity and affects primarily the attention component.
  • Seven-month-old babies showed an altered processing behavior of male, but not of female, emotional faces.
  • Interestingly, this effect was observed only for male faces—not for female ones.
  • The scent of an unfamiliar father did not trigger this response.

Our results show: the scent of the father can—in a manner similar to that of the mother—influence the emotional processing of faces in babies and play an important role in how babies process emotional information. Especially for male faces, it appears that paternal scent can direct the baby’s attention to fearful facial expressions. This suggests that the scent of another parent can guide babies’ attention to specific stimuli. Thus, it can be said that paternal scent influences early socio-emotional processing in infancy. Whether this effect is related to familiarity, for example due to differences in caregiving time, is currently still unclear.

If you are interested, you can find the journal article at this link:
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/p3kz9_v1

Once again, thank you very much for your participation and active support of our research! We are very pleased with these exciting findings and are grateful to have gained new insights into early childhood development with this study—which would not have been possible without your support.

TAZ Artikel: Soziale Erfahrungen prägen Gesundheit

In the article published in the TAZ on 15.1.25, you can gain a small impression of what happens at the Institute of Medical Psychology. The Babylab is affiliated to the Institute, which is headed by Prof. Dr. Sarah Jessen together with Prof. Dr. Ulrike Krämer and Prof. Dr. Daniel Scholz.

For further information, see:

https://taz.de/!6058417

Babylab presents data at the ICIS in Glasgow

This July, Antonia Düfeld and Sarah Jessen went to the International Congress of Infant Studies (ICIS) in Glasgow to present new data on the role of paternal odor in early social development. The conference was also a great opportunity to learn lots about the newest research and ideas in the field of infant development.

More infos about the conference can be found here:

https://infantstudies.org/2024-Congress/

Welcome to the Institute of Medical Psychology

Since the beginning of the year, the Babylab has officially been part of the newly founded (or rather: re-established) Institute of Medical Psychology. On June 26, the opening ceremony of the institute, which is headed by Sarah Jessen from the Babylab, Ulrike Krämer (https://www.cns-luebeck.com) and Daniel Scholz from the Lübeck University of Music, took place. After a short welcome address by the acting President of the University of Lübeck, Prof. Dr. Gillessen-Kaesbach, Prof. Beate Ditzen from Heidelberg gave an exciting lecture on the development of attachment in different phases of life. The evening ended with a small reception, a great opportunity to talk to many colleagues from different areas of the university. All in all, it was a great evening and the Babylab is looking forward to many more exciting projects in the institute. 

Everything about our institute can be found here (soon also in English):  

https://www.imp.uni-luebeck.de/institut

… and a report about the opening ceremony here (unfortunately only in German):

https://www.uni-luebeck.de/aktuelles/nachricht/artikel/neues-institut-fuer-medizinische-psychologie-feierlich-eroeffnet.html

https://www.hl-live.de/text.php?id=166757

Our lab is growing!

Last year, a number of new people joined our lab! Antonia Düfeld started her PhD in summer, and Laura Maffongelli joined us as a postdoc. Since November, Robin Nehler is also working on his PhD project in our lab. We are very much looking forward to many exciting project in the coming year, and of course to many families participating in our research!

How do children and adults ascribe authority?

The results from our first study with preschoolers are out! We went to several preschools in Lübeck and asked 3-to-6 -year-olds to watch short video clips of two people interacting. Afterwards, we asked them who of the two people is more likely to be the boss. Turns out, children go mostly by looks – they judged the taller person as more likely to be in charge. Adults, in contrast, ignored the height difference but based their judgement on the person’s behavior. All the details can be found here:

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/nb73a

What’s especially cool about this study: the entire project was initiated and carried out by a group of super motivated and talented Psychology students for their Bachelor’s thesis Congratulations, Sarah Pieper, Sara Weber, and Anne Neuwerk!