Although cognitive theories of psychopathology suggest that attention bias towards threat plays a role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety, there is relatively little evidence regarding individual differences in the earliest development of attention bias towards threat. The current study examines attention bias towards threat during its potential first emergence by evaluating the relations between attention bias and known risk factors of anxiety (i.e., temperamental negative affect and maternal anxiety). We measured attention bias to emotional faces in infants (N=98; 57 male) ages 4 to 24 months during an attention disengagement eye-tracking paradigm. We hypothesized that: 1) there would be an attentional bias towards threat in the full sample of infants, replicating previous studies, 2) attentional bias towards threat would be positively related to maternal anxiety, and 3) attention bias towards threat would be positively related to temperamental negative affect. Finally, 4) we explored the potential interaction between temperament and maternal anxiety in predicting attention bias towards threat. We found that attention bias to the affective faces did not change with age, and that bias was not related to temperament. However, attention bias to threat, but not attention bias to happy faces, was positively related to maternal anxiety, such that higher maternal anxiety predicted a larger attention bias for all infants. These findings provide support for attention bias as a putative early mechanism by which early markers of risk are associated with socioemotional development.

The current study examined the relations between individual differences in attention to emotion faces and temperamental negative affect across the first two years of life. Infant studies have noted a normative pattern of preferential attention to salient cues, particularly angry faces. A parallel literature suggests that elevated attention bias to threat is associated with anxiety, particularly if coupled with temperamental risk. Examining the emerging relations between attention to threat and temperamental negative affect may help distinguish normative from at-risk patterns of attention. Infants (N=145) ages 4 to 24 months (Mean=12.93 months, SD=5.57) completed an eye-tracking task modeled on the attention bias “dot-probe” task used with older children and adults. With age, infants spent greater time attending to emotion faces, particularly threat faces. All infants displayed slower latencies to fixate to incongruent versus congruent probes. Neither relation was moderated by temperament. Trial-by-trial analyses found that dwell time to the face was associated with latency to orient to subsequent probes, moderated by the infant's age and temperament. In young infants low in negative affect longer processing of angry faces was associated with faster subsequent fixation to probes; young infants high in negative affect displayed the opposite pattern at trend. Findings suggest that although age was directly associated with an emerging bias to threat, the impact of processing threat on subsequent orienting was associated with age and temperament. Early patterns of attention may shape how children respond to their environments, potentially via attention's gate-keeping role in framing a child's social world for processing.

Parasympathetic processes appear to underlie maladaptive parent-child interactions in maltreating families, but it is unknown whether parent-child coregulation of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) differs by child maltreatment severity and subtype. RSA coregulation in maltreating and nonmaltreating mother-child dyads ( N = 146; age 3-5 years) during two dyadic tasks was analyzed using dynamic time series modeling. Nonmaltreating dyads showed positive RSA concordance but maltreating dyads (when examined as one group) did not. However, when examined separately by subtype, physically abusive dyads showed positive concordance and neglectful dyads no concordance, in dyadic RSA. Patterns were further modified by maltreatment severity, which predicted discordant RSA (one partner's RSA predicting decreases in the other's) in both groups. Specifically, higher physical abuse severity predicted lower resting child RSA, declining mother RSA over time, and mother RSA predicting declines in child RSA over time, suggesting a mother-driven dyadic stress response. Higher neglect severity predicted increasing child RSA over time and child RSA predicting declines in mother RSA over time, suggesting a child-driven maternal stress response. These findings show there are distinct patterns of RSA coregulation in nonmaltreating, physically abusive, and neglectful mother-child dyads, which may inform etiology and intervention with respect to stress regulation in maltreating families.

No abstract

Because golf greens are constructed of very sandy soil mixtures over a gravel and tile drainage system and subjected to heavy irrigation schedules, there is a high potential for loss of applied N through leaching. This study was undertaken to determine the influence of management practices during different seasons on the fate of N applied to golf greens. Small isolated golf greens (3 m on a side) were constructed according to USGA specifications and equipped with drainage and runoff collection systems. Mixtures of sand and Houston black clay soil (Udic Pellusterts) were used in some plots while others were made of a Tabor sandy loam soil (Udertic Paleustales). All plots were planted with Tifdwarf Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon L). N sources were applied at various rates during different seasons. The golf greens were irrigated at three different rates. Leachate and runoff samples were analyzed for NO3 to evaluate the influence of management practices on N losses from the golf greens. The results show that N losses and concentrations of NO3 in the leachate immediately after application of soluble sources were a function of the rate of N and water applied. When the irrigation rate was kept at or near the evapotranspiration rate, the loss of NO3 from inorganic soluble sources was minimized. The irrigation rate did not affect the NO3 losses from organic sources. Seasonal studies indicated that losses and concentrations of NO3 were highest in winter. This appeared to be associated with the large volume of water which leached from the plots during the season. It was concluded that N losses and NO3 concentrations could be lowered by: using organic sources of N; reducing irrigation rates to equal the evapotranspiration rate; and decreasing fertilizer rates during periods of slow growth.