An Experimental Study On Attentional Bias Of Negative Emotional Faces In Childhood Psychological Abuse

Purposes:To investigate the attentional bias towards negative emotional faces in adult survivors of childhood psychological abuse.Methods:（1）Cluster sampling was applied in this study while 765 college students were chosen from a university in Harbin.The Child Psychological Maltreatment Scale（CPMS）was used to screen participants.（2）Then 25 participants reporting histories of psychological maltreatment in childhood and 25 participants who did not report such histories were recruited for Experiments 1 and 2,respectively.（3）Experiment 1: using emotional face pictures as experimental materials,the modified point detection paradigm was applied.The Experiment 1 used 2（group: psychological abuse group,non-psychological abuse group）× 2（face valence: positive,negative）× A mixed experimental design of 2（consistency: consistent,inconsistent）× 2（presentation time: 100 ms,500ms）was used to study the characteristics of attentional bias towards negative emotional faces in children who were psychologically abused in childhood.（4）Experiment 2: emotional faces with red and green borders are used as experimental materials,the negative priming paradigm was applied.The Experiment 2 used 2（group:psychological abuse group,non-psychological abuse group）× 2（detection target emotional face valence: positive,negative）× 2（experimental treatment level: experimental condition,control condition）mixed experimental design to study the attentional inhibition of negative emotional faces as distracting stimuli in childhood psychologically battered individuals,in order to deepen explore the attentional bias of childhood battered individuals to negative emotional faces from the perspective of the inhibition of distracting stimuli.Results:（1）In Experiment 1,the subject’s key press response to the target was used as the dependent variable.When the presentation time was 100 ms,the psychological abuse group’s response to negative emotional faces under the same condition was significantly smaller than the baseline response（t=-4.36,P<0.05）,and showed attentional vigilance to negative emotional faces.When the presentation time was 500 ms,the participants in the psychological abuse group responded significantly to negative emotional faces under inconsistent conditions than when they responded to the baseline（t=7.30,P<0.05）,showing difficulty in disengaging their attention to negative emotional faces.（2）In Experiment 2,the subjects in the non-psychological abuse group showed a normal negative priming effect when they responded to positive and negative emotional faces under the experimental condition during the detection phase,and showed a normal negative priming effect.The inhibitory ability of the face is normal.However,the psychological abuse group’s response to negative emotional faces in the experimental condition was significantly smaller than that in the control condition during the detection phase（F=13.22,P<0.05）,showing difficulty or insufficient inhibition of negative emotional faces;There was no difference in response time（F=0.10,P>0.05）,and no negative priming effect was shown.Conclusions:（1）The attentional bias components of children who were psychologically abused in childhood included attentional vigilance and attentional disengagement difficulties.Attentional vigilance was exhibited when the stimulus was presented for 100 ms.And attentional disengagement difficulty was exhibited when the stimulus was presented for 500 ms.（2）Children who were psychologically abused in childhood had insufficient inhibition of negative emotional faces,and at the same time,the inhibition ability of positive emotional faces was not as good as that of non-psychologically abused children.The overall level of attentional control was lower than that of the non-psychologically ones.