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Working memory and emotional interpretation bias in a sample of Syrian refugee adolescents

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Abstract

The number of adolescent refugees around the world has been continuously increasing over the past few years trying to escape war and terror, among other things. Such experience not only increases the risk for mental health problems including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but also may have implications for socio-cognitive development. This study tested cognitive-affective processing in refugee adolescents who had escaped armed conflict in Syria and now resided in Istanbul, Turkey. Adolescents were split into a high trauma (n = 31, 12 girls, mean age = 11.70 years, SD = 1.15 years) and low trauma (n = 27, 14 girls, mean age = 11.07 years, SD = 1.39 years) symptom group using median split, and performed a working memory task with emotional distraction to assess cognitive control and a surprise faces task to assess emotional interpretation bias. The results indicated that high (vs. low) trauma symptom youth were ~ 20% worse correctly remembering the spatial location of a cue, although both groups performed at very low levels. However, this finding was not modulated by emotion. In addition, although all youths also had a ~ 20% bias toward interpreting ambiguous (surprise) faces as more negative, the high (vs. low) symptom youth were faster when allocating such a face to the positive (vs. negative) emotion category. The findings suggest the impact of war-related trauma on cognitive-affective processes essential to healthy development.

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Data availability

Both tasks are available from the authors. Due to the sensitive nature of the data, aggregated data were only available upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by a 2–4 year grant (01J05415) from the Special Research Fund (Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds, BOF) at Ghent University to SCM.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Sven C. Mueller & Michela Saretta

  2. Department of Personality, Psychological Assessment and Treatment, University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain

    Sven C. Mueller, Joana Gómez-Odriozola & Esther Calvete

  3. Graduate School of Psychology, Özyeğin University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Cagla Unal

  4. Psychology Program, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

    Fadwa Al Mughairbi

  5. Department of Psychology, Uskudar University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Baris Metin

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  1. Sven C. Mueller
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  4. Fadwa Al Mughairbi
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Correspondence to Sven C. Mueller.

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Ethical approval granted by the Institutional Review Board of Uskudar University, Istanbul, Turkey.

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Mueller, S.C., Unal, C., Saretta, M. et al. Working memory and emotional interpretation bias in a sample of Syrian refugee adolescents. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 30, 1885–1894 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-020-01656-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-020-01656-8

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