Cognitive Brain Event-Related Potentials and Emotion Processing in Maltreated Children

Abstract

Cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 23 maltreated and 21 nonmaltreated children. Children were presented with slides of Ekman photographs of asingle model posing an angry (25%), a happy (25%), or a neutral (50%) facial expression. In 1 of 2 counterbalanced target conditions, children were asked to press a button in response to the angry face; in the other target condition, they responded to the happy face. Both samples, as expected, exhibited the largest amplitude of the P300 component of the ERP to target stimuli and the smallest amplitude to nontargets. For nonmaltreated children, the average amplitude of P300 across slides was comparable for the 2 target conditions. In contrast, maltreated children displaed larger P300 ampltude to stimuli when they were directed to attend to angry, as opposd children displayed larger p300 amplitude to stimuli whe they were directed to attend to angry, as opposed to happy, targets. These reaults suggest different cognitive processing for positive versus negative affective expressions by children with histories of atypical emotiaonal exotional experiences.

A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective on Child Maltreatment

“…Findings for the P260 waveform were consistent with previous ERP findings in older maltreated children (Pollak, Cicchetti, Klorman, & Brumaghim, 1997), with maltreated infants showing increased amplitude to angry as compared to happy affects. However, findings for the P1 and Nc waveforms revealed a hyper-responsivity to affective novelty, with maltreated infants having greater amplitude in response to happy facial affect and nonmaltreated infants showing greater responsivity to angry faces.…”

“…Given the attentional biases with respect to anger that have been identified in maltreated infants and children (Curtis & Cicchetti, this issue;Pollak et al, 1997), it is possible that boys and girls may vary in their reactions to different emotional expressions and that these differences could relate to the type of psychopathology that emerges. Relatedly, it is possible that gender differences may occur with respect to how maltreated children process and understand their abusive experiences and that these processes could vary by gender×maltreatment subtype interactions.…”

Event-related Potentials and Their Applications

“…Typical examples are experimental papers concerning emotions, attention, cognitive processes and finally personality traits. Also in research of emotions ERPs are frequently used to study emotional responses to positive and negative stimuli (Moser et al, 2009;Schafer et al, 2010;Xue et al, 2013), emotional memory (Dolcos & Cabeza, 2002), effects of emotional content on declarative memory (Gasbarri et al, 2006), emotion regulation (Hajcak et al, 2010) or emotion processing (Pollak et al, 1997).…”

Cognitive mediation of childhood maltreatment and adult depression in recent crime victims

“…Findings generally support the idea that childhood maltreatment indeed confers risk for information-processing biases and overt cognitions characteristic of maladaptive schemas. For example, studies of maltreated children compared to nonmaltreated children suggest that maltreated children allocate more attentional resources to displays of negative emotion relative to positive emotion (Pollak, Cicchetti, Klorman, & Brumaghim, 1997;Pollak, Klorman, Thatcher, & Cicchetti, 2001). Maltreated children also report more maladaptive cognitions (i.e., negative expectations about the future) compared to nonmaltreated children (Allen & Tarnowski, 1989).…”