Caregiving relationships are a cornerstone of developmental psychopathology.

The interdisciplinary field of developmental psychopathology has made great strides by including context into theoretical and empirical approaches to studying risk and resilience. Perhaps no context is more important to the developing child than their relationships with their caregivers (typically a child's parents), as caregivers are a key source of stimulation and nurturance to young children. Coupled with the high degree of brain plasticity in the earliest years of life, these caregiving relationships have an immense influence on shaping behavioral outcomes relevant to developmental psychopathology. In this article, we discuss three areas within caregiving relationships: (1) caregiver-child interactions in everyday, naturalistic settings; (2) caregivers' social cognitions about their child; and (3) caregivers' broader social and cultural context. For each area, we provide an overview of its significance to the field, identify existing knowledge gaps, and offer potential approaches for bridging these gaps to foster growth in the field. Lastly, given that one value of a scientific discipline is its ability to produce research useful in guiding real-world decisions related to policy and practice, we encourage developmental psychopathology to consider that a focus on caregiving, a modifiable target, supports this mission.

Adolescents' Sexual Orientation and Behavioral and Neural Reactivity to Peer Acceptance and Rejection: The Moderating Role of Family Support.

Sexual-minority adolescents frequently endure peer rejection, yet scant research has investigated sexual-orientation differences in behavioral and neural reactions to peer rejection and acceptance. In a community sample of adolescents approximately 15 years old (47.2% female; same-sex attracted: n = 36, exclusively other-sex attracted: n = 310), we examined associations among sexual orientation and behavioral and neural reactivity to peer feedback and the moderating role of family support. Participants completed a social-interaction task while electroencephalogram data were recorded in which they voted to accept/reject peers and, in turn, received peer acceptance/rejection feedback. Compared with heterosexual adolescents, sexual-minority adolescents engaged in more behavioral efforts to ingratiate after peer rejection and demonstrated more blunted neural reactivity to peer acceptance at low, but not medium or high, levels of family support. By using a simulated real-world social-interaction task, these results demonstrate that sexual-minority adolescents display distinct behavioral and neural reactions to peer acceptance and rejection.

[Formula: see text] Neural and behavioral indicators of cognitive control in preschoolers with and without prenatal opioid exposure.

Prenatal opioid exposure is one consequence of the opioid epidemic, but effects on child development remain poorly understood. There is emerging evidence that children exposed to opioids in utero exhibit elevated emotional and behavioral problems, which may be partially due to alterations in cognitive control. Using multiple methods (i.e., neuropsychological, behavioral, and event-related potential [ERP] assessments), the present study examined differences in emotional, behavioral, and cognitive control difficulties in preschool-aged children with (n = 21) and without (n = 23) prenatal opioid exposure (Mage = 4.30, SD = 0.77 years). Child emotional and behavioral problems were measured with a caregiver questionnaire, indicators of cognitive control were measured using developmentally appropriate behavioral (i.e., delay discounting, Go/No-Go) and neuropsychological (i.e., Statue) tasks, and electroencephalogram was recorded to error and correct responses in a Go/No-Go task. ERP analyses focused on the error-related negativity (ERN), an ERP that reflects error monitoring, and correct-response negativity (CRN), a component reflecting performance monitoring more generally. Opioid exposure was associated with elevated difficulties across domains and a blunted ERN, reflecting altered cognitive control at the neural level, but groups did not significantly differ on behavioral measures of cognitive control. These result replicate prior studies indicating an association between prenatal opioid exposure and behavioral problems in preschool-aged children. Further, our findings suggest these differences may be partially due to children with prenatal opioid exposure exhibiting difficulties with cognitive control at the neural level. The ERN is a potential target for future research and intervention efforts to address the sequelae of prenatal opioid exposure.

Characterizing positive and negative valence systems function in adolescent depression: An RDoC-informed approach integrating multiple neural measures.

Depression is a prevalent, debilitating, and costly disorder that often manifests in adolescence. There is an urgent need to understand core pathophysiological processes for depression to inform more targeted intervention efforts. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Positive Valence Systems (PVS) and Negative Valence Systems (NVS) have both been implicated in depression symptomatology and vulnerability; however, the nature of NVS alterations is unclear across studies, and associations between single neural measures and symptoms are often small in magnitude and inconsistent. The present study advances characterization of depression in adolescence via an innovative data-driven approach to identifying subgroups of PVS and NVS function by integrating multiple neural measures (assessed by electroencephalogram [EEG]) relevant to depression in adolescents oversampled for clinical depression and depression risk based on maternal history (N = 129; 14-17 years old). Results of the k-means cluster analysis supported a two-cluster solution wherein one cluster was characterized by relatively attenuated reward and emotion responsiveness across valences and the other by relatively intact responsiveness. Youth in the attenuated responsiveness cluster reported significantly greater depressive symptoms and were more likely to have major depressive disorder diagnoses than youth in the intact responsiveness cluster. In contrast, associations of individual neural measures with depressive symptoms were non-significant. The present study highlights the importance of innovative neuroscience approaches to characterize emotional processing in depression across domains, which is imperative to advancing the clinical utility of RDoC-informed research.

Neural reactivity to infant emotion cues during pregnancy: Associations with peripartum anxiety and depressive symptoms.

BACKGROUND: Pregnancy is marked by physiological and psychosocial changes for women, and event-related potentials (ERP) are comfortable and safe for examining brain function across pregnancy. The late positive potential (LPP) ERP, a measure of allocated attention to emotional stimuli, may provide insight into associations between internalizing symptoms and neural processing of infant emotion cues, which may be particularly salient in this life stage. METHODS: We developed a task to examine neural and behavioral responses to infant faces in pregnant women (N = 120, Mage=31.09, SD=4.81), the impact of auditory infant cries on the LPP to faces, and associations between the LPP and anxiety and depressive symptoms. Participants matched distressed, happy, and neutral infant faces and shapes as a comparison condition with interspersed auditory conditions (infant cry sounds vs. white noise) while electroencephalogram data were collected. Participants also completed self-report measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Reaction time (RT) was faster for the infant cry vs. white noise condition and when matching shapes vs. infant faces. Depressive symptoms were associated with slower RTs to neutral infant faces. The LPP was enhanced overall to faces vs. shapes, but there was no main effect of auditory condition. Anxiety symptoms were associated with an enhanced LPP to infant distressed faces in the infant cry condition. CONCLUSIONS: Results support these methods for measuring neural and behavioral responses to infant emotional cues in pregnancy and provide evidence that combinations of auditory and visual stimuli may be particularly useful for capturing emotional processes relevant to anxiety.

Teaching or learning from baby: Inducing explicit parenting goals influences caregiver intrusiveness.

Caregivers' goals influence their interactions with their children. In this preregistered study, we examined whether directing parents to teach their baby versus learn from their baby influenced the extent to which they engaged in intrusive (e.g., controlling, adult-centered rather than child-centered), sensitive, warm, or cognitively stimulating caregiving behaviors. Mothers and their 6-month-old infants (N = 66; 32 female infants) from the San Francisco Bay Area participated in a 10-min "free-play" interaction, coded in 2-min epochs for degree of parental intrusiveness. Prior to the final epoch, mothers were randomly assigned to receive instructions to focus on (a) teaching something to their infant or (b) learning something from their infant. A control group of mothers received no instructions. Analyses of within-person changes in intrusive behavior from before to after receiving these instructions indicated that mothers assigned to teach their infant increased in intrusiveness whereas mothers assigned to learn from their infant and mothers in the control group did not significantly change in intrusiveness. The study provides experimental evidence that caregivers' explicit goals to teach infants result, on average, in more controlling and adult-centered caregiving behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Caregivers' positive emotion socialization tendencies are associated with positive affect in preschool age children.

Longstanding theories of emotion socialization postulate that caregiver emotional and behavioral reactions to a child's emotions together shape the child's emotion displays over time. Despite the notable importance of positive valence system function, the majority of research on caregiver emotion socialization focuses on negative valence system emotions. In the current project, we leveraged a relatively large cross-sectional study of caregivers (N = 234; 93.59% White) of preschool aged children to investigate whether and to what degree, caregiver (1) emotional experiences, or (2) external behaviors, in the context of preschoolers' positive emotion displays in caregiver-child interactions, are associated with children's general positive affect tendencies. Results indicated that, in the context of everyday caregiver-child interactions, caregiver-reported positively valenced emotions but not approach behaviors were positively associated with child general positive affect tendencies. However, when examining specific caregiver behaviors in response to everyday child positive emotion displays, caregiver report of narrating the child's emotion and joining in the emotion with their child was positively associated with child general positive affect tendencies. Together, these results suggest that in everyday caregiver-child interactions, caregivers' emotional experiences and attunement with the child play a role in shaping preschoolers' overall tendencies toward positive affect.

Las teorías de socialización de la emoción que han existido por mucho tiempo postulan que las reacciones emocionales y de comportamiento de quien presta el cuidado ante las emociones del niño juntas le dan forma a la emoción que el niño muestra a través del tiempo. A pesar de la notable importancia de la función del sistema positivo de valores, la gran mayoría de la investigación acerca de la socialización de la emoción de quien presta cuidado se enfoca en emociones del sistema negativo de valores. En el presente proyecto, aprovechamos un estudio transversal relativamente grande de quienes prestan cuidado (N = 234; 93.59% blancos) a niños de edad prescolar para investigar si y hasta qué punto (1) las experiencias emocionales de quien presta el cuidado, o (2) los comportamientos externos dentro del contexto de la emoción positiva mostrada por los prescolares en las interacciones cuidador-niño, se asocian con las generales tendencias afectivas positivas de los niños. Los resultados indicaron que, dentro del contexto de las interacciones cuidador-niño diarias, las emociones de valores positivamente reportadas por el cuidador, pero no así las conductas de acercamiento, fueron positivamente asociadas con las generales tendencias afectivas positivas del niño. Sin embargo, cuando se examinaron los específicos comportamientos del cuidador como respuesta a las muestras diarias de emociones positivas del niño, el reporte del cuidador al narrar la emoción del niño y el unirse en la emoción con el niño, fueron positivamente asociados con las generales tendencias afectivas positivas del niño. Juntos, estos resultados sugieren que, en las interacciones diarias entre cuidador y niño, las experiencias emocionales del cuidador y la compenetración con el niño juegan un papel en el proceso de darle forma a las generales tendencias de los prescolares hacia el afecto positivo.

Les théories de la socialisation de l'émotion qui existent de longue date postulant que les réactions émotionnelles et comportementales aux émotions d'un enfant des modes de soin forment la manière dont l'émotion de l'enfant s'affiche au fil du temps. En dépit de l'importance notable d'un système de fonction de valence positive, la plus grande partie des recherches sur la socialisation de l'émotion de la personne prenant soin d'un enfant se concentrent sur le système d'émotions de valence négative. Dans ce projet nous avons tiré parti une assez grande étude de coupe transversale de personnes prenant soin d'un enfant (N = 234; 93,59% blanches) d'enfant d'âge préscolaire afin de découvrir si et à quel degré (1) les expériences émotionnelles ou (2) les comportements externes de la personne prenant soin de l'enfant dans le contexte de l'affichage de l'émotion positive des enfants d'âge préscolaire dans les interactions personne prenant soin de l'enfant-enfant sont liées aux tendances générales de l'affect positif des enfants. Les résultats ont indiqué que, dans le contexte de la journée typique de la personne prenant soin de l'enfant, les interactions de l'enfant, les émotions avec une valence positive rapportées par la personne prenant soin de l'enfant mais non les comportements d'approche étaient liés de manière positive avec tendances générales de l'affect positif de l'enfant. Cependant, en examinant les comportements spécifiques des personnes prenant soin de l'enfant en réponse aux affichages de l'émotion positive de l'enfant chaque jour, le compte rendu de l'émotion de l'enfant fait par la personne en prenant soin et de sa participation à l'émotion avec leur enfant était liée de manière positive aux tendances générales de l'affect positif de l'enfant. Tous ensemble, ces résultats suggèrent que dans les interactions de chaque jour de la personne prenant soin de l'enfant et l'enfance, les expériences émotionnelles des personnes prenant soin de l'enfant et l'harmonisation avec l'enfant jouent un rôle dans la construction des tendances générales des enfants d'âge préscolaire vers un affect positif.

Associations between parental conflict and social and monetary reward responsiveness in adolescents with clinical depression.

Increased rates of depression beginning in adolescence are thought to be attributed in part to marked developmental changes in reward systems and interpersonal relationships. Blunted reward response has been observed in depression and this may be shaped in part by social experiences, raising questions about the combined associations of parental conflict, depression, and reward response in both social and monetary domains. The present study used the reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential that indexes both monetary and social reward processing, to examine the unique and combined associations of parental conflict and depressive symptoms on reward responsiveness in adolescents with clinical depression (N = 70) 14-18 years of age (M = 15.81, SD = 1.46; 65.7% female). Results indicated that depressive symptoms interacted with maternal conflict in characterizing the RewP to social, but not monetary, rewards. Specifically, higher levels of current depressive symptoms and potentiated maternal conflict together were associated with an attenuated RewP to social rewards in this clinical sample. We found no significant effects of paternal conflict. This investigation highlights maternal conflict as an important environmental factor for reward responsiveness and also emphasizes the utility of examining social reward responsiveness in depression in order to better understand the impacts of contextual factors.

Temporal dynamics of emotional processing: Parsing trial-wise variance of the late positive potential using Generalizability Theory.

The reliability of individual trial event-related potential (ERP) components extracted from electroencephalogram has been consistently questioned since ERP research began. This ambivalence is based on misunderstood assumptions stemming from Cronbach and Classical Test Theory. Contemporary methods allow for the reliability of individual ERP trials to be estimated and for analyses of these trial-level ERP components to be meaningfully parsed. We illustrate the use of Generalizability Theory procedures in estimating the reliability of trial-level ERPs using the late positive potential (LPP), a neural measure of motivated attention toward emotionally evocative stimuli. Individuals (N = 88) completed a passive viewing task while continuous EEG was recorded. Variability in trial-level LPP responses was decomposed into facets corresponding to individual differences, chronological trial within block, stimulus type, their two-way interactions, and specific stimuli. We estimated various reliability coefficients and found that both overall and category-specific person-level LPP estimates have good-to-excellent reliability, while the reliability of within-person differences (i.e., change) between arousal categories was fair for the early LPP. These results were generally consistent across time windows, but were highest early in the LPP time course. We argue that investigating reliability using trial-level data allows researchers to pursue hypotheses focused on neurophysiological dynamics that unfold over the course of an experiment and not risk false inferences (i.e., ecological fallacy) when using person-level aggregates to deduce such processes. Moreover, such analyses provide information that allows researchers to optimize their protocols by potentially reducing the number of individual trials, burden on participants, and cost, while retaining sufficient reliability.

The novel frontal alpha asymmetry factor and its association with depression, anxiety, and personality traits.

Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) is widely examined in EEG research, yet a procedural consensus on its assessment is lacking. In this study, we tested a latent factorial approach to measure FAA. We assessed resting-state FAA at broad, low, and high alpha bands (8-13; 8-10.5; and 11-13 Hz) using mastoids as reference electrodes and Current Source Density (CSD) transformation (N = 139 non-clinical participants). From mastoid-referenced data, we extracted a frontal alpha asymmetry factor (FAAf) and a parietal factor (PAAf) subjecting all asymmetry indices to a varimax-rotated, principal component analysis. We explored split-half reliability and discriminant validity of the mastoid factors and the mastoid and CSD raw asymmetry indices (F3/4, F7/8, P3/4, and P7/8). Both factor and raw scores reached an excellent split-half reliability (>.99), but only the FAAf reached the maximum discriminant validity from parietal scores. Next, we explored the correlations of latent factor and raw FAA scores with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and personality traits to determine which associations were driven by FAA after variance from parietal activity was removed. After correcting for false discovery rate, only FAAf at the low alpha band was negatively associated with depression symptoms (a latent CES-D factor) and significantly diverged from PAAf's association with depression symptoms. With respect to personality traits, only CSD-transformed F7/8 was positively correlated with Conscientiousness and significantly diverged from the correlations between Conscientiousness and P3/4 and P7/8. Overall, the latent factor approach shows promise for isolating functionally distinct resting-state EEG signatures, although further research is needed to examine construct validity.

Mother-infant convergence of event-related potentials elicited by face and object processing.

Prior work has provided conceptual support for developmental changes in face and object processing, such that: face processing, as captured by the N290 event-related potential (ERP) component in infancy, may develop into the N170 in adulthood; and motivated attention, as captured by the negative central (Nc) in infancy, may develop into the late positive potential (LPP). The present study examined these neural correlates in 12-month-old infants and their mothers (N = 33 dyads). Dyads completed a viewing task consisting of familiar and novel face and toy stimuli while electroencephalography was recorded. Results suggest that for mothers, the N170 was larger for faces than toys, regardless of familiarity, and the LPP was largest for familiar faces. In infants, the N290 was somewhat larger for faces than toys (p < .10); the Nc did not vary by condition. Adult ERPs demonstrated fair to good reliability; reliability of infant ERPs was lower and was influenced by looking behaviors. Intergenerational associations were strongest between the LPP and Nc, particularly when electrode and time window were taken into account. Refinement of data handling and ERP scoring procedures for infant ERPs are crucial next steps for estimation of intergenerational associations and further examination of developmental changes in face and object processing.

Authors' reply to the commentary on "Establishing norms for error-related brain activity during the arrow Flanker task among young adults".

In their commentary on our article, "Establishing norms for error-related brain activity during the arrow Flanker task among young adults" (Imburgio et al., 2020), Clayson and colleagues (2021) voiced their concerns about our development of norms for an event-related potential measure of error monitoring, the error-related negativity (ERN). The central flaw in their commentary is the idea that because we don't know all the factors that can affect the ERN, it should not be normed. We respond to this idea, while also reiterating points made in our original manuscript: a) at present, the reported norms are not intended to be used for individual clinical assessment and b) our norms should be considered specific to the procedures (i.e., recording and processing parameters) and task used (i.e., arrow Flanker). Contrary to Clayson and colleagues' claims, we believe that information about the distribution of the ERN (i.e., our norms) in a large sample representative of those used in much of the ERN literature (i.e., unselected young adults) will be useful to the field and that this information stands to increase, not decrease, understanding of the ERN.

Establishing norms for error-related brain activity during the arrow Flanker task among young adults.

Psychological assessments typically rely on self-report and behavioral measures. Augmenting these with neurophysiological measures of the construct in question may increase the accuracy and predictive power of these assessments. Moreover, thinking about neurophysiological measures from an assessment perspective may facilitate under-utilized research approaches (e.g., brain-based recruitment of participants). However, the lack of normative data for most neurophysiological measures has prevented the comparison of individual responses to the general population, precluding these approaches. The current work examines the distributions of two event-related potentials (ERPs) commonly used in individual differences research: the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe). Across three lab sites, 800 unselected participants between the ages of 18 and 30 performed the arrow version of a Flanker task while EEG was recorded. Percentile scores and distributions for ERPs on error trials, correct trials, and the difference (ΔERN, ΔPe; error minus correct) at Fz, Cz and Pz are reported. The 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile values for the ΔERN at Cz were -2.37 â€‹µV, -5.41 â€‹µV, and -8.65 â€‹µV, respectively. The same values for ΔPe at Cz were 7.51 â€‹µV, 11.18 â€‹µV, and 15.55 â€‹µV. Females displayed significantly larger ΔPe magnitudes and smaller ΔERN magnitudes than males. Additionally, normative data for behavioral performance (accuracy, post-error slowing, and reaction time) on the Flanker task is reported. Results provide a means by which ERN and Pe amplitudes of young adults elicited by the arrow Flanker task can be benchmarked, facilitating the classification of neural responses as 'large,' 'medium,' or 'small'. The ability to classify responses in this manner is a necessary step towards expanded use of these measures in assessment and research settings. These norms may not apply to ERPs elicited by other tasks, and future work should establish similar norms using other tasks.

Intergenerational Transmission of Frontal Alpha Asymmetry Among Mother-Infant Dyads.

BACKGROUND: Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) is a well-established neurobiological indicator of depression risk. Reduced FAA relates to current and remitted depression in adults and is seen in offspring of mothers with depression as young as 3 months of age, suggesting a potentially transmittable mechanism of depression risk. It is unclear, however, whether direct familial associations exist for FAA. To address this gap, we evaluated the intergenerational transmission of FAA in a nonclinical cohort of mother-infant dyads. METHODS: Mothers and their 12-month-old infants (n = 34 dyads) completed parallel resting-state tasks while electroencephalography was recorded. We measured FAA across a range of putative frequency bands and calculated its reliability in mothers and infants. Finally, we evaluated the heritability of FAA based on the parent-offspring correlation. RESULTS: Mother and infant FAA convergence was strongest in the high alpha range for mothers (11-13 Hz) and broad alpha range for infants (6-9 Hz). Mother high FAA exhibited excellent split-half reliability (rSB = .99) and internal consistency after 80 seconds (α = .90); infant FAA exhibited good split-half reliability (rSB = .81) and fair internal consistency after 70 seconds (α = .74). Mother-infant FAA were moderately correlated (r = .41), which indicates narrow-sense heritability of up to 82%. CONCLUSIONS: FAA can be assessed reliably and relatively quickly in both adults and infants. There is a robust association of FAA between mothers and their infants, supporting intergenerational transmission. This finding is consistent with the possibility that reduced FAA may directly confer depression risk at the individual-family level.

Block-wise and trial-wise analyses of the late positive potential reveal distinct affective trajectories as a function of neuroticism.

The late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential that is modulated by affective stimuli, is often employed as an objective measure of momentary emotional reactivity in affective neuroscience research. A wide range of tasks are used to elicit the LPP, yet relatively few studies assess how task-specific methodological differences influence observed effects on LPP amplitude. The present study tested whether the LPP systematically varies across repeated blocks of affective stimuli in terms of block-wise averages and trial-wise slopes, as well as if this variability relates to trait affective style. Participants (N = 112) completed a passive-viewing task designed to assess carry-over effects from one fixed valence block to the next. Rather than single scores for each image type averaged across all trials, as is typically done, the LPP was investigated first as averages across single blocks organized by valence and arousal categories and then trial-wise within these blocks. Traditional analyses and multilevel modeling procedures were employed to investigate effects. Results revealed that average LPP amplitude increased for the second versus the first blocks for affective but not neutral images. Moreover, trial-wise variation in the LPP systematically related to trait affective style: neuroticism moderated slopes of reactivity to pleasant and unpleasant images and produced affective carry-over effects for those higher in neuroticism. Together, results suggest that LPP amplitude is systematically modulated by block sequence, which could explain discrepancies across studies. Furthermore, block-wise averages capture only a portion of reactivity, obscuring trial-wise dynamics that are more closely aligned with theoretical frameworks of emotion.

Increased neural sensitivity to self-relevant stimuli in major depressive disorder.

The current research examined how individuals with depression process emotional, self-relevant stimuli. Across two studies, individuals with depression and healthy controls read stimuli that varied in self-relevance while EEG data were recorded. We examined the late positive potential (LPP), an ERP component that captures the dynamic allocation of attention to motivationally salient stimuli. In Study 1, participants read single words in a passive-viewing task. Participants viewed negative, positive, or neutral words that were either normative or self-generated. Exploratory analyses indicated that participants with depression exhibited affective modulation of the LPP for self-generated stimuli only (both positive and negative) and not for normative stimuli; healthy controls exhibited similar affective modulation of the LPP for both self-relevant and normative stimuli. In Study 2, using a separate sample and a different task, stimuli were provided within the context of sentence stems referring to the self or other people. Participants with depression were more likely to endorse negative self-referent sentences and reject positive ones compared to healthy controls. Depressed participants also exhibited an increased LPP to negative stimuli compared to positive or neutral stimuli. Together, these two studies suggest that depression is characterized by relatively increased sensitivity to affective self-relevant stimuli, perhaps in the context of a broader reduction in emotional reactivity to stimuli that are not self-relevant. Thus, depression may be characterized by a more nuanced pattern based on the degree of stimulus self-relevance than either a global decrease or increase in reactivity to affective stimuli.

Abnormal emotional reactivity in depression: Contrasting theoretical models using neurophysiological data.

Several theoretical models of aberrant emotional experiences in depression have been suggested. These models include potentiated reactivity to negatively-valenced stimuli, attenuated reactivity to positively-valenced stimuli, and attenuated emotional reactivity across contexts (termed emotion-context insensitivity). It is unclear if these models apply uniquely to depression or if they can explain other closely related symptoms, such as anxiety or general negative affect. The current study (N = 122) is the first to utilize structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques on neurophysiological data (event-related potentials, or ERPs) to empirically compare these theoretical models, thereby integrating perspectives from clinical psychology with affective neuroscience and advanced statistical techniques. We recorded ERPs during a passive viewing emotional task. Correlational analyses revealed several small, non-significant negative relationships between depression symptoms and emotional reactivity to both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli. However, SEM analyses revealed significantly attenuated emotional reactivity, to both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli, for depressive symptomatology. These relationships were specific to depression and did not apply to anxiety or internalizing symptoms broadly. Model comparisons revealed support for the emotional-context insensitivity hypothesis. Findings from this study are evidence in support of marrying novel techniques (here, SEM and ERPs) to test important theoretical questions regarding internalizing symptomatology.

Bringing the brain into personality assessment: Is there a place for event-related potentials?

Advances in technology have provided opportunities to assess physiological correlates and further our understanding of a number of constructs, including personality traits. Event-related potentials (ERPs), scalp-recorded measures of brain activity with millisecond temporal resolution, show properties that make them potential candidates for integrating neurophysiological methods into personality research. Several commonly used ERPs have trait-like properties including test-retest stability approaching .8 over two weeks. Additionally, ERP methods are relatively inexpensive and tolerable compared to other neurophysiological methods (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI]) making them easier to obtain sample sizes required for individual differences research. Finally, the tasks that elicit ERPs are flexible enough to allow researchers to customize the tasks to the psychological constructs of interest. These factors suggest that ERPs could potentially be useful in the study of personality and individual differences. A baseline approach to this line of inquiry is to examine the properties of ERPs as neurophysiological individual differences markers and probe their links to personality traits as assessed by self-report questionnaires. This article does this for three well-studied ERPs. Techniques commonly used in personality assessment research-but rarely in ERP research-were applied to these candidate ERPs to examine their psychometric properties and personality correlates. Overall, although ERPs show promising properties as neurophysiological indicators of individual differences, they were only marginally related with existing personality traits. Further research clarifying the ERPs measurement properties and potential links with known personality processes is needed. Finally, we list some strategies to further integrate these two areas of research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Variation in reward- and error-related neural measures attributable to age, gender, race, and ethnicity.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been widely applied to the study of individual differences in reward and error processing, including recent proposals of several ERPs as possible biomarkers of mental illness. A criterion for all biomarkers, however, is that they be generalizable across the relevant populations, something which has yet to be demonstrated for many commonly studied reward- and error-related ERPs. The aim of this study was to examine variation in reward and error-related ERPs across core demographic variables: age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Data was drawn from three studies with relatively large samples (N range 207-527). Results demonstrated that ERPs varied across the demographic variables of interest. Several examples include attenuated reward-related ERPs with increasing age, larger error-related ERPs for men than women, and larger ERPs to feedback after losses for individuals who identified as Hispanic/Latino. Overall, these analyses suggest systematic variation in ERPs that is attributable to core demographic variables, which could give rise to seemingly inconsistent results across studies to the extent that these sample characteristics differ. Future psychophysiological studies should include these analyses as standard practice and assess how these differences might exacerbate, mask, or confound relationships of interest.

Differential effects of state and trait mindfulness on the late positive potential.

Mindfulness is an effective emotion regulation strategy, and its principles have formed the basis for several psychotherapies. Of interest is how a mindful perspective changes not only the subjective experience of emotion, but also neural activity involved in emotional processing. In a previous event-related potential (ERP) study, trait mindfulness was linked with reduced neural activity in response to affective stimuli, as measured by the late positive potential (LPP). Building on this result, we investigated how both state (i.e., task-induced) and trait mindfulness would jointly affect the LPP in a large adult sample (N = 118). First, participants passively viewed affective images while ERP data were recorded. Participants were then instructed to adopt a mindful perspective and viewed a second, equivalent set of images. We hypothesized that the LPP would be reduced from the passive viewing to the mindful viewing condition. Contrary to our hypothesis, task-induced mindfulness increased LPP amplitude relative to passive viewing across all image types, suggesting that state mindfulness increases motivated attention to stimuli, regardless of affective valence and arousal. Trait mindfulness did not correlate with LPP amplitude in either the passive or mindful viewing conditions. As an unexpected finding, gender moderated the association between trait mindfulness and LPP amplitude to emotional images during mindful viewing. We propose that state and trait mindfulness impact emotional processing through different neural mechanisms and discuss implications for mindfulness as an emotion regulation strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).