Parental Expressed Emotion-Criticism and Neural Markers of Sustained Attention to Emotional Faces in Children

Abstract

There is growing evidence for the role of environmental influences on children's information-processing biases for affectively salient stimuli. The goal of this study was to extend this research by examining the relation between parental criticism (expressed emotion-criticism, or EE-Crit) and children's processing of facial displays of emotion. Specifically, we examined the relation between EE-Crit and children's sensitivity in detecting facial displays of emotion. We also examined a neural marker of sustained attention, the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential component (ERP). Participants were 87 children (ages 7-11 years; 53.3% female, 77.8% Caucasian) and their parents (ages 24-71; 90% female, 88.9% Caucasian). Parents completed the Five-Minute Speech Sample to determine levels of EE-Crit toward their child. Children completed a morphed faces task during which behavioral and ERP responses were assessed. Although there were no group differences in sensitivity in detecting facial displays of emotion, we found that children of parents exhibiting high, compared to low, EE-Crit displayed less attention (smaller LPP magnitudes) to all facial displays of emotion (fearful, happy, sad). These results suggest that children of critical parents may exhibit an avoidant pattern of attention to affectively-salient interpersonal stimuli.

The development of neural responses to emotional faces: A review of evidence from event-related potentials during early and middle childhood

“…Most studies employed an explicit task design, with the exception of Kujawa et al (2012a , 2012b ) and Simonetti et al (2019) . Generally, adult stimuli were used in the FEP task, although James et al (2018) and Woody et al (2019) included morphed child stimuli. The majority of studies included children aged seven years or older, with no studies including children under 5 years of age.…”

The Relationship Between Childhood Emotional Abuse and Processing of Emotional Facial Expressions in Healthy Young Men: Event-Related Potential and Behavioral Evidence

“…For example, a larger N170 amplitude to angry faces was found in healthy adults who experienced childhood abuse and neglect than non-maltreated controls (Fang et al, 2019 ); the P3b amplitude to angry faces was larger in physically abused children than non-abused children (Shackman et al, 2007 ). On the contrary, James et al ( 2018 ) found that children who received high levels of emotional criticism exhibited smaller LPP to all facial expressions (fearful, happy, and sad) than children who received low levels of emotional criticism from their parents, which they explained that children of critical parents may exhibit avoidance of salient facial stimuli. These mixed results might be due to the different types of maltreatment and different age groups (children vs. adults).…”

Parental Behaviors and Involvement in Children’s Digital Activities among Israeli Jewish and Arab Families during the COVID-19 Lockdown

“…Children whose parents express high levels of positive emotions tend to show high levels of social abilities, adaptive skills, social-emotional understanding, and empathy (e.g., Eisenberg et al, 2003;Knafo & Plomin, 2006;Moller et al, 2019;Roth & Assor, 2010). Yet, children of critical and/or harsh parents tend to be less attentive to social interpersonal cues (Cruz-Alaniz et al, 2018;James et al, 2018). Also, frequency of parent-child joint activities predicts preschoolers' social (e.g., Galboda-Liyanage et al, 2003) and academic achievements (e.g., Bingham et al, 2017).…”