TY - JOUR

T1 - Early institutionalized care disrupts the development of emotion processing in prosody

AU - Chinn, Lisa K.

AU - Ovchinnikova, Irina

AU - Sukmanova, Anastasia A.

AU - Davydova, Aleksandra O.

AU - Grigorenko, Elena L.

N1 - Chinn, L., Ovchinnikova, I., Sukmanova, A., Davydova, A., & Grigorenko, E. (2021). Early institutionalized care disrupts the development of emotion processing in prosody. Development and Psychopathology, 33(2), 421-430. doi:10.1017/S0954579420002023

PY - 2021/5

Y1 - 2021/5

N2 - Millions of children worldwide are raised in institutionalized settings. Unfortunately, institutionalized rearing is often characterized by psychosocial deprivation, leading to difficulties in numerous social, emotional, physical, and cognitive skills. One such skill is the ability to recognize emotional facial expressions. Children with a history of institutional rearing tend to be worse at recognizing emotions in facial expressions than their peers, and this deficit likely affects social interactions. However, emotional information is also conveyed vocally, and neither prosodic information processing nor the cross-modal integration of facial and prosodic emotional expressions have been investigated in these children to date. We recorded electroencephalograms (EEG) while 47 children under institutionalized care (IC) (n = 24) or biological family care (BFC) (n = 23) viewed angry, happy, or neutral facial expressions while listening to pseudowords with angry, happy, or neutral prosody. The results indicate that 20- to 40-month-olds living in IC have event-related potentials (ERPs) over midfrontal brain regions that are less sensitive to incongruent facial and prosodic emotions relative to children under BFC, and that their brain responses to prosody are less lateralized. Children under IC also showed midfrontal ERP differences in processing of angry prosody, indicating that institutionalized rearing may specifically affect the processing of anger.

AB - Millions of children worldwide are raised in institutionalized settings. Unfortunately, institutionalized rearing is often characterized by psychosocial deprivation, leading to difficulties in numerous social, emotional, physical, and cognitive skills. One such skill is the ability to recognize emotional facial expressions. Children with a history of institutional rearing tend to be worse at recognizing emotions in facial expressions than their peers, and this deficit likely affects social interactions. However, emotional information is also conveyed vocally, and neither prosodic information processing nor the cross-modal integration of facial and prosodic emotional expressions have been investigated in these children to date. We recorded electroencephalograms (EEG) while 47 children under institutionalized care (IC) (n = 24) or biological family care (BFC) (n = 23) viewed angry, happy, or neutral facial expressions while listening to pseudowords with angry, happy, or neutral prosody. The results indicate that 20- to 40-month-olds living in IC have event-related potentials (ERPs) over midfrontal brain regions that are less sensitive to incongruent facial and prosodic emotions relative to children under BFC, and that their brain responses to prosody are less lateralized. Children under IC also showed midfrontal ERP differences in processing of angry prosody, indicating that institutionalized rearing may specifically affect the processing of anger.

KW - EEG

KW - emotion recognition

KW - ERPs

KW - institutionalized care

KW - prosody

KW - Anger

KW - Humans

KW - Evoked Potentials

KW - Facial Expression

KW - Electroencephalography

KW - Child

KW - Emotions

KW - BRAIN RESPONSES

KW - LANGUAGE

KW - COMMUNICATING EMOTION

KW - EARLY INTERVENTION

KW - RECOGNITION

KW - BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

KW - EARLY DEPRIVATION

KW - CHILDREN

KW - EXPRESSIONS

KW - FACE

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85101183087&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/15c8f5a6-4578-3800-9fd0-1e1b6585db36/

U2 - 10.1017/s0954579420002023

DO - 10.1017/s0954579420002023

M3 - Article

C2 - 33583457

AN - SCOPUS:85101183087

VL - 33

SP - 421

EP - 430

JO - Development and Psychopathology

JF - Development and Psychopathology

SN - 0954-5794

IS - 2

ER -