Attention bias and anxiety in young children exposed to family violence

Background—Attention bias towards threat is associated with anxiety in older youth and adults and has been linked with violence exposure. Attention bias may moderate the relationship between violence exposure and anxiety in young children. Capitalizing on measurement advances, the current study examines these relationships at a younger age than previously possible. Methods—Young children (mean age 4.7, ±0.8) from a cross-sectional sample oversampled for violence exposure (N = 218) completed the dot-probe task to assess their attention biases. Observed fear/anxiety was characterized with a novel observational paradigm, the Anxiety Diagnostic Observation Schedule. Mother-reported symptoms were assessed with the Preschool-Age Psychiatric Assessment and Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children. Violence exposure was characterized with dimensional scores reflecting probability of membership in two classes derived via latent class analysis from the Conflict Tactics Scales: Abuse and Harsh Parenting. Results—Family violence predicted greater child anxiety and trauma symptoms. Attention bias moderated the relationship between violence and anxiety

Monitoring brain activity of human subjects during delayed matching to sample tasks comparing verbal and pictorial stimuli with modal and cross-modal presentation : an event related potential study employing a source reconstruction method

The time course of the event related potentials evoked within a delayed matching to sample task employing verbal and pictorial stimuli was analyzed with a source reconstruction method (miminum norm method). During signal stimulus presentation pictorial stimuli evoked more activity than verbal stimuli. Activity was particularly prominent in left frontal areas for the match of verbal verbal stimulus pairs and over right posterior regions for the match of verbal pictorial stimuli. Anticipation of the to-be-matched stimulus produced more pronounced activity for pictorial stimuli and generally stronger left and frontal activity. Results are discussed referring to a biological model of language processing