Relations Between Affect-Biased Attention, Maternal Anxiety and Infant Negative Affect in Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Samples

• In Event: Parental and Child Influences on the Transmission and Development of Anxiety

Abstract

Affect-biased attention is an automatic sociocognitive process that prioritizes emotionally or motivationally salient stimuli. Several models of affect-biased attention suggest that the construct has multiple components that emerge with development through bidirectional relations between parental traits (maternal anxiety) and biological predispositions (temperament; Field & Lester, 2010; Morales et al., 2016). However, researchers typically rely on a single task to measure affect-biased attention and few have examined the developmental course of affect-biased attention which may have led to inconsistent results in the literature. The current paper examines these questions in two separate samples of infants. First, in a large cross-sectional sample, we examine the multifaceted nature of affect-biased attention using both a variable-centered (factor analysis; FA) and person-centered (latent profile analysis; LPA) approach. A variable-centered approach tells us if we can find specific factors of affect-biased attention (such as an engagement factor and a disengagement factor), whereas a person-centered approach tells us if we can find groups of infants with particular types of affect-biased attention (such as a vigilant group or avoidant group). We then examine how our factors and groups relate to maternal anxiety, temperamental negative affect and age. Second, in a longitudinal sample we will examine bidirectional relations between person-centered affect-biased attention, temperamental negative affect, and maternal anxiety over three time-points in the first year of life.

In Study 1, 193 infants (Mage_mo = 12.34, SDage_mo = 5.67, Rangeage_mo = 4.00 to 24.30) completed three affect-biased attention tasks (dot-probe, overlap, vigilance). As reported in Table 2, using FA, we found evidence for two factors of affect-biased attention: An Engagement factor and a Disengagement factor, where greater maternal anxiety was related to less engagement with faces. Using LPA, we also found two groups of infants with specific affect-biased attention profiles: A Vigilant and an Avoidant affect-biased attention group, where infants higher in negative affect who also experienced higher levels of maternal anxiety were most likely to be in the Vigilant group (see Figure 2). Overall, these results suggest that both FA and LPA are viable and unique approaches for examining relations between parental traits (maternal anxiety) and biological predispositions (temperamental negative affect) and emerging patterns of affect-biased attention. In Study 2, 300 infants to-date from a three-site study have completed the same three affect-biased attention tasks at 4-, 8-, and 12-months-of-age. We will conduct an LPA at each time point to assess affect-biased attention. We will then use structural equation modeling to assess bidirectional relations between affect-biased attention, temperamental negative affect, and maternal anxiety over time.

The current studies provide insight into methods for assessing affect-biased attention both across tasks and across time as well as the roles of maternal anxiety and temperamental negative affect in early patterns of affect-biased attention. We provide evidence for the strength of person-centered analyses for understanding affect-biased attention and relations with temperamental negative affect and maternal anxiety. Furthermore, we will examine predicted bidirectional relations in affect-biased attention in our longitudinal sample, providing a much-needed examination of our theoretical frameworks.

Authors

• Alicia Vallorani, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Kelley E Gunther, Yale University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Santiago Morales, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xiaoxue Fu, University of South Carolina
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessica Burris, University of Rutgers - Newark
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andy Peter Field, University of Sussex
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin A. Buss, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Vanessa Lobue, Rutgers University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Koraly Elisa Perez-Edgar, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Non-Presenting Author