Poster #9 - Pupil Responses to Dynamic Negative versus Positive Emotional Expressions in Parents and 8-to-12-year-old Children: Links to Parent and Child Anxiety

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Anxiety is highly prevalent in adults and children (Baxter et al., 2013; Racine et al., 2021), and runs in families (Lawrence et al., 2019; Micco et al. 2009). Affective science perspectives conceptualize anxiety as a disorder of emotion, marked by an increase in negative emotions coupled with a reduced ability for regulation. This imbalance is observable in one or more components of an emotional response, including emotional experience, emotional expression, and accompanying arousal (Gross & Jazaieri, 2014). Child emotional responses and emotion regulation abilities develop from parent-child interactions (Holodynski & Friedlmeier, 2005). Parents and children synchronize to each other’s emotional expressions and arousal levels during these interactions (Davis et al., 2009; Harrist & Waugh, 2002), with stronger arousal synchrony reported in dyads with anxious parents (Smith et al., 2021). However, less is known about the links between parent and child arousal to others’ dynamic expressions of emotion. Observing others’ emotional expressions triggers physiological arousal in parents and children, reflected in dilated pupils (Aston-Jones & Cohen, 2005). Earlier evidence revealed stronger pupil dilation to fearful faces in children of anxious parents (Burkhouse et al., 2014), but the link between parent and child pupil responses have not yet been explored in relation to parental and child anxiety levels. The current study investigated this direct link between pupil responses of parents and children to emotional expressions and tested the links between anxiety in parents and children, and to child pupil responses. We measured pupil responses in a community sample of parents (N = 90, 47 mothers), and their 8-to-12-year-olds (N = 90, 47 girls, MAge =10.13, SDAge = 1.32) during free-viewing of negative (fearful, angry, sad) versus positive (happy) dynamic emotional expressions. Parents and children reported their anxiety in online questionnaires. The proposed associations were analyzed with repeated hierarchical mixed models with child pupil responses as the outcome. We found a significant interaction between emotion (negative versus positive) and parental pupillary responses, F (3, 173421.38) = 4.79, p = .002. The direct link between parent and child pupillary responses was stronger during angry than fearful or sad (versus happy) expressions. The link between child pupillary responses and self-reported child anxiety also differed as a function of emotion on screen, F (3, 7651.49) = 6.83, p < .001. More anxious children responded with reduced pupillary responses to sad faces, but with enhanced pupillary arousal to angry, fearful, and happy faces (Figure 1). Likewise, the links between parental anxiety and child pupil responses also depended on the emotion on screen, F (3, 7643.33) = 8.25, p < .001): Children of parents with more anxiety showed stronger pupillary arousal to fearful faces only (Figure 2). Findings reveal for the first time the direct links between parents' and children’s pupil responses to external displays of emotion, especially anger. We conclude that both parental and child anxiety are linked to child pupillary arousal to others’ dynamic expressions of emotion, which is modulated based on the specific emotional signal.

Authors

• Evin Aktar, Leiden University
  Presenting Author

• Marianna Venetikidi, Leiden University

• Bram Van Bockstaele, University of Western Australia

• Danielle Van Der Giessen, University of Amsterdam

• Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park