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Target onsets in dynamically changing displays can be predicted when contingencies exist between different stimulus states over time. In the present study, we examined predictive monitoring when participants searched dynamically changing displays of numbers and colored squares for a color target, a number target or both. Stimuli were presented in both contiguous and discrete spatial configurations. Response time (RT) and accuracy were recorded and evidence of predictive monitoring was assessed via first fixations and refixations of target-predictive stimuli. RTs to target onsets and evidence of predictive monitoring were reduced in dual-target, relative to single-target, conditions. Further, predictive monitoring did not speed RTs but was influenced by display configuration. In particular, discrete displays impaired monitoring for number targets in the dual-target condition. Implications exist for real-world visual tasks involving multiple target categories and for visual display design.

The emergence of anxiety during childhood is accompanied by the development of attentional biases to threat. However, the neural mechanisms underlying these biases are poorly understood. In addition, previous research has not examined whether state and trait anxiety are independently associated with threat-related biases. We compared ERP waveforms during the processing of emotional faces in a population sample of 58 6-11-year-olds who completed self-reported measures of trait and state anxiety and depression. The results showed that the P1 was larger to angry than neutral faces in the left hemisphere, though early components (P1, N170) were not strongly associated with child anxiety or depression. In contrast, Late Positive Potential (LPP) amplitudes to angry (vs. neutral) faces were significantly and positively associated with symptoms of anxiety/depression. In addition, the difference between LPPs for angry (vs. neutral) faces was independently associated with state and trait anxiety symptoms. The results showed that neural responses to facial emotion in children with elevated symptoms of anxiety and depression were most evident at later processing stages characterized as evaluative and effortful. The findings support cognitive models of threat perception in anxiety and indicate that trait elements of anxiety and more transitory fluctuations in anxious affect are important in understanding individual variation in the neural response to threat in late childhood.

Many jobs now involve the monitoring visual representations of data that change over time. Monitoring dynamically changing displays for the onset of targets can be done in two ways: detecting targets directly post their onset or predicting their onset from the prior state of distractors. In the present study, participants? eye movements were measured as they monitored arrays of 108 colored squares whose colors changed systematically over time. Across three experiments, the data show that participants detected the onset of targets both directly and predictively. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that predictive detection was only possible when supported by sequential color changes that followed a scale ordered in color space. Experiment 3 included measures of individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) and anxious affect and a manipulation of target prevalence in the search task. It found that predictive monitoring for targets, and decisions about target onsets, were influenced by interactions between individual differences in verbal and spatial WMC and intolerance of uncertainty, a characteristic that reflects worry about uncertain future events. The results have implications for the selection of individuals tasked with monitoring dynamic visual displays for target onsets.

The current study used an eye-movement Remote Distractor Paradigm (RDP) to explore attention to threat and considered associations with personality traits (neuroticism and psychoticism) and self-reported friendship quality in children aged 9–11 years. The RDP asked children to look at and identify a target presented on a computer display in the presence or absence of a central, parafoveal or peripheral visual distractor (an angry, happy or neutral face). The results showed that symptoms of neuroticism were associated with hypervigilance for threat (i.e., slower latencies to initiate eye movements to the target in the presence of angry versus happy or neutral faces). In addition, when distractors were presented centrally, this relationship was most evident in children who reported lower levels of attentional control. Psychoticism traits were associated with increased selective attention to all distractors (as measured by directional errors to face stimuli) and to child reported lower friendship quality. Moreover, the negative relationship between psychoticism and friendship characteristics associated with companionship was mediated via attentional capture of threat (i.e., a greater proportion of directional errors to angry distractors). The findings have potential to inform the development of translational research, to reduce symptoms of psychopathology and address attentional biases to threat with an aim to improve peer relationships in late childhood.

Sensitivity to facial and vocal emotion is fundamental to children's social competence. Previous research has focused on children's facial emotion recognition, and few studies have investigated non-linguistic vocal emotion processing in childhood. We compared facial and vocal emotion recognition and processing biases in 4- to 11-year-olds and adults. Eighty-eight 4- to 11-year-olds and 21 adults participated. Participants viewed/listened to faces and voices (angry, happy, and sad) at three intensity levels (50%, 75%, and 100%). Non-linguistic tones were used. For each modality, participants completed an emotion identification task. Accuracy and bias for each emotion and modality were compared across 4- to 5-, 6- to 9- and 10- to 11-year-olds and adults. The results showed that children's emotion recognition improved with age; preschoolers were less accurate than other groups. Facial emotion recognition reached adult levels by 11 years, whereas vocal emotion recognition continued to develop in late childhood. Response bias decreased with age. For both modalities, sadness recognition was delayed across development relative to anger and happiness. The results demonstrate that developmental trajectories of emotion processing differ as a function of emotion type and stimulus modality. In addition, vocal emotion processing showed a more protracted developmental trajectory, compared to facial emotion processing. The results have important implications for programmes aiming to improve children's socio-emotional competence.

Facial emotion-recognition difficulties have been reported in school-aged children with behavior problems; little is known, however, about either this association in preschool children or with regard to vocal emotion recognition. The current study explored the association between facial and vocal emotion recognition and behavior problems in a sample of 3 to 6-year-old children. A sample of 57 children enriched for risk of behavior problems (41 were recruited from the general population while 16 had been referred for behavior problems to local clinics) were each presented with a series of vocal and facial stimuli expressing different emotions (i.e., angry, happy, and sad) of low and high intensity. Parents rated children’s externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Vocal and facial emotion recognition accuracy was negatively correlated with externalizing but not internalizing behavior problems independent of emotion type. The effects with the externalizing domain were independently associated with hyperactivity rather than conduct problems. The results highlight the importance of using vocal as well as facial stimuli when studying the relationship between emotion-recognition and behavior problems. Future studies should test the hypothesis that difficulties in responding to adult instructions and commands seen in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be due to deficits in the processing of vocal emotions.

Introduction Vocal anger is a salient social signal serving adaptive functions in typical child development. Despite recent advances in the developmental neuroscience of emotion processing with regard to visual stimuli, little remains known about the neural correlates of vocal anger processing in childhood. This study represents the first attempt to isolate a neural marker of vocal anger processing in children using electrophysiological methods. Methods We compared ERP wave forms during the processing of non-word emotional vocal stimuli in a population sample of 55 6-11-year-old typically developing children. Children listened to three types of stimuli expressing angry, happy, and neutral prosody and completed an emotion identification task with three response options (angry, happy and neutral/'ok'). Results A distinctive N400 component which was modulated by emotional content of vocal stimulus was observed in children over parietal and occipital scalp regions-amplitudes were significantly attenuated to angry compared to happy and neutral voices. Discussion Findings of the present study regarding the N400 are compatible with adult studies showing reduced N400 amplitudes to negative compared to neutral emotional stimuli. Implications for studies of the neural basis of vocal anger processing in children are discussed.