Age-Related Changes in Emotional Face Processing Across Childhood and Into Young Adulthood: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

MacNamara, Annmarie; Verges, Alvaro; Kujawa, Autumn; Fitzgerald, Kate D.; Monk, Christopher S.; Phan, K. Luan

Abstract

Socio-emotional processing is an essential part of development, and age-related changes in its neural correlates can be observed. The late positive potential (LPP) is a measure of motivated attention that can be used to assess emotional processing; however, changes in the LPP elicited by emotional faces have not been assessed across a wide age range in childhood and young adulthood. We used an emotional face matching task to examine behavior and event-related potentials (ERPs) in 33 youth aged 7-19 years old. Younger children were slower when performing the matching task. The LPP elicited by emotional faces but not control stimuli (geometric shapes) decreased with age; by contrast, an earlier ERP (the P1) decreased with age for both faces and shapes, suggesting increased efficiency of early visual processing. Results indicate age-related attenuation in emotional processing that may stem from greater efficiency and regulatory control when performing a socio-emotional task. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 58: 27-38, 2016.

Más información

Título según WOS: ID WOS:000370141300003 Not found in local WOS DB
Título de la Revista: DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY
Volumen: 58
Número: 1
Editorial: Wiley
Fecha de publicación: 2016
Página de inicio: 27
Página final: 38
DOI:

10.1002/dev.21341

Notas: ISI