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Facial Muscular Movements and Young Children’s Emotion Regulation, Concurrent Neural Activation, and Risk for Psychopathology

Sat, March 23, 12:45 to 2:15pm, Hilton Baltimore, Floor: Level 1, Johnson A

Integrative Statement

Introduction. Researchers have long used direct observation of young children’s overt frustration responses to investigate the development of maladaptive emotion regulation skills and early onset mental disorder. However, strong expressions of anger are also developmentally normative in preschoolers and kindergarteners, making it challenging to identify specific behaviors discriminating children with normative vs. deficient emotion regulation. Investigations of individual facial muscles during emotional challenges in adults revealed that faces comprising orbicularis oculi, or eye constriction, the outer ring of muscle around the eye, predicted higher emotional intensity and forecasted later physical health and emotional well-being. In the present study, we hypothesized that frequency of young children’s eye constriction during frustration would 1) predict the strength of concurrent lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) activation during frustration, and 2) accurately classify whether children fell above or below the clinical cutoff for externalizing behavior problems.

Study population. Participants were 79 children (ages 3-7) recruited from the local community via paper and internet advertisements.

Methods. Frustration Task. All children completed The Frustration Emotion Task for Children (FETCH) a validated frustration induction task in which children “race” against a virtual dog named Sparky to collect bones in order to win a prize. Unbeknownst to the child, the game comprises win and frustration blocks during which the child wins or loses most of the bones, respectively. LPFC Activation. During the FETCH task, LPFC activation was recorded via functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). The fNIRS probe comprised four light-source emitter positions containing 690 nm (12 mW) and 830 nm (8 mW) laser light, and eight detectors, positioned over the DLPFC within each hemisphere. Facial Coding. Individual facial muscular movements were coded using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). The frequency of negative expressions during frustration with and without eye constriction was calculated. Parent Questionnaires. Parents rated their child’s externalizing behavior using the Early Childhood Inventory (ECI), or Child Symptom Inventory (CSI), depending on whether their child was between ages 3-5 years or 6-7 years, respectively. A t-score of 65 was used to classify children as falling above or below the clinical cut-off.

Results. Frequency of negative facial expressions with eye constriction were inversely associated with concurrent LPFC activation at two channels, one in the left (t(64) = −3.42, q < .05, d = .85) and one in the right (t(64) = −3.09, q < .05, d = .77) hemisphere controlling for age (Figure 1). Negative facial expressions without eye constriction did not predict LPFC activation. Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curves revealed that negative facial expressions that included eye constriction significantly discriminated children with and without clinically significant externalizing symptoms with high Area Under the Curve (AUC) values (> .75) indicating good clinical utility (Figure 2). In contrast, expressions without eye constriction showed no clinical utility. The presence of negative expressions with eye constriction in response a short frustration prompt may serve as an indicator of early neural dysfunction and psychopathology, raising the potential for novel assessment tools that may enhance precision of early identification.

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