An attentional bias to threat: Event related potentials in EEG studies of children with anxiety
Open Access
Author:
Downs, Madison
Area of Honors:
Psychology
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Cynthia L Huang-Pollock, Thesis Supervisor Jeff M Love, Thesis Honors Advisor Jeff M Love, Faculty Reader
Keywords:
anxiety children EEG gender latency
Abstract:
Background. Anxiety is a common concern among children. The present study looked at the latency to several different event related potential (ERPs) during an attentional bias to threat task in children with and without anxiety concerns. Methods. Children were shown angry and neutral adult facial images while wearing and electroencephalography (EEG) cap. Each image was presented for 1,000 ms, after which children were asked to indicate whether the image was “scary” or “not scary.” Results. Children with anxiety had longer latency to N2 ERPs when viewing scary images as opposed to not scary images. This was qualified by Anxious x Scary and Gender x Scary interactions. Latency to N2 ERP did not vary between Scary and non-Scary images for anxious children, but did for non-anxious children. For the Gender x Scary interaction, latency to the ERP signal was longer for boys when they were shown Scary vs. Not Scary images. There was no effect of image type for girls. Conclusions. Going forward more research needs to be done to investigate responses to emotional stimuli of all kinds to tease apart potential gender differences and to understand how anxiety status may mediate these interactions.
