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Attentional Biases for Emotional Faces in Young Children of Mothers with Chronic or Recurrent Depression

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Abstract

Attentional biases for negative stimuli have been observed in school-age and adolescent children of depressed mothers and may reflect a vulnerability to depression. The direction of these biases and whether they can be identified in early childhood remains unclear. The current study examined attentional biases in 5–7-year-old children of depressed and non-depressed mothers. Following a mood induction, children participated in a dot-probe task assessing biases for sad and happy faces. There was a significant interaction of group and sex: daughters of depressed mothers attended selectively to sad faces, while children of controls and sons of depressed mothers did not exhibit biases. No effects were found for happy stimuli. These findings suggest that attentional biases are discernible in early childhood and may be vulnerability markers for depression. The results also raise the possibility that sex differences in cognitive biases are evident before the emergence of sex differences in the prevalence of depression.

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Notes

  1. Development of the MacBrain Face Stimulus Set was overseen by Nim Tottenham and supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development. Please contact Nim Tottenham at tott0006@tc.umn.edu for more information concerning the stimulus set.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794-2500, USA

    Autumn J. Kujawa, Dana Torpey, Jiyon Kim, Greg Hajcak, Suzanne Rose & Daniel N. Klein

  2. Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Ian H. Gotlib

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  1. Autumn J. Kujawa
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  2. Dana Torpey
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  3. Jiyon Kim
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  4. Greg Hajcak
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  6. Ian H. Gotlib
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  7. Daniel N. Klein
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Correspondence to Autumn J. Kujawa.

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This work was supported by the following grants: National Institute of Mental Health grant RO1 MH069942 (DNK) and GCRC Grant M01-RR10710 to Stony Brook University from the National Center for Research Resources.

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Kujawa, A.J., Torpey, D., Kim, J. et al. Attentional Biases for Emotional Faces in Young Children of Mothers with Chronic or Recurrent Depression. J Abnorm Child Psychol 39, 125–135 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-010-9438-6

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