The late positive potential as a neural signature for cognitive reappraisal in children.

The late positive potential (LPP), which is reduced following the use of reappraisal, is a potential neurosignature for emotion regulation capacity. This sensitivity of the LPP to reappraisal is rarely studied in children. We tested whether, in 26 typically developing seven- to nine-year-olds, LPP amplitudes were reduced following reappraisal and whether this effect varied with age and anxiety.

Associations between parental ideology and neural sensitivity to cognitive conflict in children.

Processes through which parental ideology is transmitted to children-especially at a young age prior to the formation of political beliefs-remain poorly understood. Given recent evidence that political ideology is associated with neural responses to cognitive conflict in adults, we tested the exploratory hypothesis that children's neurocognitive responses to conflict may also differ depending on their parents' ideology. We assessed relations between parental political ideology and children's neurocognitive responses to conflict, as measured by the N2 component of the event-related potential.

The N170 to angry faces predicts anxiety in typically developing children over a two-year period.

Enhanced threat processing has been associated with elevated anxiety in adults, but less is known about how threat processing influences the developmental trajectory of anxiety in children. We used the N170 to measure threat (angry faces) processing in relation to child anxiety over a 2-year period. Participants were 27 typically developing 5-to-7-year-olds (13 females).

The impact of task-irrelevant emotional stimuli on attention in three domains.

Whether task-irrelevant emotional stimuli facilitate or disrupt attention performance may depend on a range of factors, such as emotion type, task difficulty, and stimulus duration. Few studies, however, have systematically examined the influence of these factors on attention performance. Sixty-three adults, scoring within a normative range for mood and anxiety symptoms, completed either an easy or difficult version of an attention task measuring three aspects of attention performance: alerting, orienting, and executive attention.