Differentiating event-related potential components sensitive to emotion in middle childhood: evidence from temporal-spatial PCA.
Event-related potentials (ERPs) may be particularly useful for examining emotional processing across development. Though a number of ERP components are sensitive to emotional content in adults, previous studies have yet to systematically examine the components sensitive to emotion in children. The current study used temporal-spatial principal components analysis (PCA) to identify ERP components in response to complex emotional images in 9-year-old children. Three components were modulated by emotional content and were similar to those previously observed in adults, including: the early posterior negativity, the P300, and a sustained relative positivity similar to the late positive potential (LPP). Compared to those previously observed in adults, the components sensitive to emotion in children were maximal over more occipital regions and the LPP component appeared to be less protracted in time, perhaps indicative of less elaborative processing of emotional stimuli.
Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2500, USA. autumn.kujawa@sunysb.edu
Autumn
A
Kujawa
Anna
A
Weinberg
Greg
G
Hajcak
Daniel N
DN
Klein
D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology