title: Attention to emotion through a go/no-go task in children with oppositionality and callous-unemotional traits.
abstract: There is debate about whether the difficulties that children with different degrees of oppositionality (ODD) and callous-unemotional traits (CU) have in processing emotions are global or specific. The aim of this study is to identify difficulties in recognizing emotion (happiness, anger, sadness and fear) through a go/no-go task in children with different levels of ODD and CU traits.
  
  
  
  A total of 320 8-year-old children were assessed through questionnaires filled out by teachers about oppositional defiant symptoms and CU traits and were then distributed into four groups: LowCU-HighODD, HighCU-LowODD, HighCU-HighODD and a comparison group (LowCU-LowODD).
  
  
  
  The analyses of variance comparing the 4 groups showed that the two groups with high ODD were less accurate than the control group in recognizing the emotion when the stimuli expressed happiness, fear or neutral emotion. The HighCU-HighODD group differed in the quality of the response (correct/wrong responses) but not in the reaction time in relation to the comparison group. The LowCU-HighODD group was faster to respond to emotions than the comparison group.
  
  
  
  The results show that the deficit in emotion processing is not restricted to specific distressing emotions such as fear or sadness, but they point to a global impairment in emotion processing in children scoring high in the constructs studied. The results also suggest that the difficulties that children with combined CU traits and oppositional conduct problems have in processing emotions are more of an emotional rather than an attentional nature.
authors.affiliation: Unitat d'Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Departament de Psicologia Clínica i de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: lourdes.ezpeleta@uab.cat.
authors.forename: Lourdes
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ezpeleta
authors.affiliation: Unitat d'Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Departament de Psicobiologia i Metodologia de les Ciències de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: J Blas
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Navarro
authors.affiliation: Unitat d'Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Departament de Psicologia Clínica i de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Núria
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: de la Osa
authors.affiliation: Unitat d'Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Departament de Psicobiologia i Metodologia de les Ciències de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Penelo
authors.affiliation: Unitat d'Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Departament de Psicologia Clínica i de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Trepat
authors.affiliation: Unitat d'Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Departament de Psicologia Clínica i de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Virginia
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Unitat d'Epidemiologia i de Diagnòstic en Psicopatologia del Desenvolupament, Departament de Psicobiologia i Metodologia de les Ciències de la Salut, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Josep M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Domènech
mesh_terms: D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis