Early Experience and Cognitive Processing of Emotion

University Of Wisconsin Madison, Madison WI

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Maltreated children are at substantial risk for the development of mental health problems, yet we know little about the neural mechanisms that contribute to this vulnerability. The research proposed in this application is designed to illuminate how traumatic experiences impact perceptual and attentional processes implicated in emotional development. Specifically, we aim to uncover the types of affective information that impact most upon emotional learning and investigate how such learning takes place. We hypothesize that vocal expressions of anger will have a differential impact on maltreated and control children. Additionally, abused children should attend more to both vocal and facial expressions of anger and show poor attentional control when presented with distracting anger signals. We also hypothesize that physiological arousal may be related to the degree to which abused children attend to anger. Biased processing of multiple emotion signals may lead to difficulty responding adaptively to emotional signals in normative contexts. This research will enhance our understanding of how dysregulation of attention may contribute to risk for maladaptive social and behavioral outcomes and inform the development of effective treatment programs for at-risk children.