Influences of Witnessed Affect on Information Processing in Children

Abstract

Children between the ages of 5 and 10 years watched a videotape of a child having a routine medical exam. Embedded within the scenes were systematic variations of depicted facial affect shown by doctor and child. Measures were taken of autonomic reactions and information-processing errors in response to positive, neutral, and negative affective cues. For 5-6-year-olds, processing errors were greatest in the negative affect condition. Additionally, peak increases in heart rate (HR) and skin conductance level (SCL) were demonstrated by 5-6-year-olds in response to negative affect shown by the witnessed child; increases in HR were in turn predictive of processing errors. Older children (9-10 years) showed trends reflecting reduced processing errors in response to witnessed negative affect. It was suggested that younger children respond to salient threat cues with a "defensive" response pattern that is relatively adaptive at younger but not older ages.

Children's memory for a mild stressor: The role of sympathetic activation and parasympathetic withdrawal

“…In contrast, insofar as young children rely on others to help them cope, young children who experience a novel stressor may become so aroused that they are not able to attend to the event. Lack of attention would lead to subsequently poorer memory, a pattern of results supported by other research (Bugental et al, 1992).…”

“…Children in the fire-alarm, or "stressed," group had significantly higher pulse rates than children in the radio, or "non-stressed," group and later provided fewer correct and more incorrect statements about their experience. Bugental et al (1992) found that 5-year-olds who exhibited increased heart rate while watching a video of a child receiving an inoculation made more mistakes when recalling the video than did 5-year-olds who did not exhibit an increase in heart rate. (No significant associations were found with older children, however).…”

“…Thus, behavioral and self-report indices may not fully capture children's actual experiences of distress. A few studies, described shortly, have included physiological measures (e.g., Bugental, Blue, Cortez, Fleck, & Rodriguez, 1992;Quas, Bauer, & Boyce, 2004). Because such measures do not rely on children's overt behavior or ability or willingness to talk about their feelings, the measures may provide unique insight into children's underlying stress experiences, insight not possible with observational or self-report methods alone.…”

“…Second, it is necessary to assess both children's general patterns of physiological reactivity, as conducted by Stein and Boyce (1995) and Quas et al (2004), and their discrete physiological responses during the stressful event, as conducted by Bugental et al (1992) and Chen et al (2000). Consistently high levels of arousal to a range of stressors may be related to large responses to a discrete event (e.g., a fire alarm), but the two types of responses are not identical.…”

“…Age may also affect the extent to which arousal is related to memory (Bugental et al, 1992), with such associations emerging in some age groups (e.g., older children) but not others (Vandermaas et al, 1993). For instance, younger children lack the ability to engage in sophisticated coping strategies without assistance from someone else.…”