Attention Biases Among Preschool-Aged Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: An Eye-tracking Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool-aged children exposed to domestic violence (DV) are more vigilant of threatening (i.e., angry faces) versus neutral faces relative to non-exposed children, and whether such vigilance relates to child psychopathology. Preschool-aged children (18 to 60 months-of-age) exposed to DV (as substantiated by child protective services) and their mothers (n=13), as well as typically developing children and their mothers (non-exposed group, n=25), participated in this study. Children completed an eye-tracking task to assess their attention to face stimuli (e.g., angry-neutral, sad-neutral, and happy-neutral face pairings). Mothers completed the Ages and Stages Questionnaire â Social and Emotional (ASQ-SE-2; Squires, Bricker Twombly, 2015). Results show that young, DV-exposed children fixated on faces for a shorter duration relative to non-exposed children, and that vigilance to angry faces is associated with more behavioural and emotional problems. Practical applications resulting from attentional bias research are discussed.M.A.2019-11-03 00:00:0