Cognitive Control in the Face of Fear: Reduced Cognitive-Emotional Flexibility in Women with a History of Child Abuse

Caldwell, Jon G.; Krug, Marie K.; Carter, Cameron S.; Minzenberg, Michael

doi:10.1080/10926771.2014.904466

Cited by 17 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Despite the sparse literature that has examined maternal PTSD symptoms and parenting in the infancy period, research has suggested that those who were abused in childhood may have cognitive‐affective difficulties that could interfere with caregiving. Research has demonstrated that those with childhood abuse histories are more likely to show heightened attentional and affective (specifically, amygdala) responses to fearful and angry faces, to make negative attributions about the self and others, to have difficulty holding information in mind in the presence of distracting emotional information, and to show impaired top‐down cortical regulation of emotional arousal (Caldwell, Krug, Carter, & Minzenberg, ; Cromheeke, Herpoel, & Mueller, ; Dannlowski et al., ; Glashouwer & De Jong, ; Grant, Cannistraci, Hollon, Gore, & Shelton, ; Hart & Rubia, ; Johnson, Gibb, & McGeary, ). Together, this suggests that individuals with abuse histories are more likely to have disrupted affective responses in the context of emotional signals (e.g., a crying infant) and also may be compromised in their ability to recruit cognitive resources at these times.…”

Section: Experiences Of Childhood Abuse and Maternal Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of Childhood Abuse and Mother-Infant Interaction: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies

Vaillancourt

Pawlby

Fearon

2017

Infant Ment. Health J.

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Literature that has examined maternal self-reported history of abuse and an observational assessment of infant-mother interaction were reviewed. Electronic databases were searched and studies that met pre-defined criteria were included. A total of 13 studies were included and assessed for quality using the EPHPP tool. Nine of the 13 studies found a relationship between self-reported abuse and observed caregiving. Due to variation in sample characteristics and measurement the ability to compare studies is limited; however, results suggest an emerging pattern of an indirect effect of maternal abuse history on caregiving via stress reactivity or depressive symptoms. Results of this review suggest that selfreported abuse history in the mother is a risk factor for non-optimal caregiving behaviours but there is a need for greater understanding of the pathways that are responsible for this effect. The current review discusses strengths and limitations of the existing literature and offers suggestions for future research.

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Section: Experiences Of Childhood Abuse and Maternal Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

History of Childhood Abuse and Mother-Infant Interaction: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies

Vaillancourt

Pawlby

Fearon

2017

Infant Ment. Health J.

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“…A third possibility that may be difficult to test concerns the lack of clarity among the findings using emotion faces with trauma groups. While there is evidence of atypical emotion face processing, there are conflicting findings as to which emotional displays (e.g., angry, fearful, happy) are more arousing and disruptive to performance (e.g., Caldwell et al, 2014 ; Cromheeke et al, 2014 ). Therefore, had we conducted separate conditions with a range of emotion faces (e.g., happy, fearful, angry, disgust), we may have observed specific indirect effects of a particular emotion face stimuli in this sample.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the study of maltreatment history, task manipulations that involve replacing neutral stimuli with trauma-relevant, emotionally valenced stimuli may be particularly fruitful. Two research groups manipulated the Stroop task of inhibition and flexibility by introducing threat word stimuli ( Fontenot et al, 2015 ) and emotion face stimuli ( Caldwell et al, 2014 ), finding poorer performance by young adults reporting a history of maltreatment particularly in the heated conditions. Cromheeke et al (2014) administered the Spatial Emotional Match to Sample task, a working memory test heated with the use of neutral and emotion faces, to adult women with differing trauma histories.…”

Section: History Of Child Maltreatment and College Academic Outcomes:mentioning

confidence: 99%

History of Childhood Maltreatment and College Academic Outcomes: Indirect Effects of Hot Execution Function

2017

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College students who report a history of childhood maltreatment may be at risk for poor outcomes. In the current study, we conducted an exploratory analysis to examine potential models that statistically mediate associations between aspects of maltreatment and aspects of academic outcome, with a particular focus on executive functions (EF). Consistent with contemporary EF research, we distinguished between relatively “cool” EF tasks (i.e., performed in a context relatively free of emotional or motivational valence) and “hot” EF tasks that emphasize performance under more emotionally arousing conditions. Sixty-one male and female college undergraduates self-reported childhood maltreatment history (emotional abuse and neglect, physical abuse and neglect, and sexual abuse) on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and were given two EF measures: (1) Go-No-Go (GNG) test that included a Color Condition (cool); Neutral Face Condition (warm); and Emotion Face condition (hot), and (2) Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), a measure of risky decision making that reflects hot EF. Academic outcomes were: (1) grade point average (GPA: first-semester, cumulative, and semester concurrent with testing), and (2) Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ). Correlational patterns suggested two EF scores as potential mediators: GNG reaction time (RT) in the Neutral Face condition, and IGT Block 2 adaptive responding. Indirect effects analyses indicated that IGT Block 2 adaptive responding has an indirect effect on the relationship between CTQ Total score and 1st semester GPA, and between CTQ Emotional Abuse and concurrent GPA. Regarding college adaptation, we identified a consistent indirect effect of GNG Neutral Face RT on the relationship between CTQ Emotional Neglect and SACQ total, academic, social, and personal–emotional adaption scores. Our results demonstrate that higher scores on a child maltreatment history self-report negatively predict college academic outcomes as assessed by GPA and by self-reported adaptation. Further, relatively “hot” EF task performance on the IGT and GNG tasks serves as a link between child maltreatment experiences and college achievement and adaptation, suggesting that hot EF skills may be a fruitful direction for future intervention efforts to improve academic outcomes for this population.

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“…Despite the plausibility that early childhood experiences may impact attention to emotion in adulthood, if and how early abuse impacts attention bias in adults is currently understudied (Gibb, Schofield, & Coles, 2009;Young & Widom, 2014). A small but emerging literature demonstrates the evidence of attention biases for unpleasant information in cross-sectional samples of adults who report a history of childhood abuse (Caldwell, Krug, Carter, & Minzenberg, 2014;Gibb et al, 2009;Johnson, Gibb, & McGeary, 2010). For example, one study of adults with a childhood abuse history showed evidence of an attention bias toward angry faces (Gibb et al, 2009), while another showed difficulty disengaging from fearful faces (Caldwell et al, 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A small but emerging literature demonstrates the evidence of attention biases for unpleasant information in cross-sectional samples of adults who report a history of childhood abuse (Caldwell, Krug, Carter, & Minzenberg, 2014;Gibb et al, 2009;Johnson, Gibb, & McGeary, 2010). For example, one study of adults with a childhood abuse history showed evidence of an attention bias toward angry faces (Gibb et al, 2009), while another showed difficulty disengaging from fearful faces (Caldwell et al, 2014). In addition to attention biases toward unpleasant information, evidence of heightened amygdala activity prompted by emotional stimuli more broadly (i.e., regardless of emotion type, e.g., angry, sad, and happy faces; van Harmelen et al, 2012), reduced attention to emotional and neutral stimuli (Weber et al, 2009), and increased attention toward pleasant (happy faces), but not unpleasant (threatening faces), stimuli (Fani, Bradley-Davino, Ressler, & McClure-Tone, 2011) have emerged.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Childhood abuse history and attention bias in adults

et al. 2020

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Attention biases toward unpleasant information are evident among children and adults with a history of abuse and have been identified as a potential pathway through which abused children develop psychopathology. Identifying whether a history of childhood abuse affects the time course of attention biases in adults is critical, as this may provide intervention targets. The present study examined the time course of attention bias during an emotion‐word Stroop task using event‐related potentials (ERPs) in a sample of adults with a range of child abuse histories using a categorical approach (comparing adults with or without a history of moderate‐to‐severe childhood abuse) and a dimensional approach (analyzing the range from no abuse to severe abuse in a continuous manner). Although behavioral performance did not vary as a function of abuse history, adults with a history of moderate‐to‐severe childhood abuse showed ERP evidence of early reduced processing of emotional stimuli (smaller N200) and later reduced processing of emotional and nonemotional stimuli (smaller P300), followed by later increased processing of unpleasant stimuli (larger slow wave [SW]). Results suggest that early disengagement from emotional stimuli may help individuals with moderate‐to‐severe abuse histories to achieve normal behavioral performance on the emotion‐word Stroop task. Additionally, regardless of analytic approach, adults with elevated levels of childhood abuse exhibited prolonged engagement (larger SW) specifically with unpleasant stimuli. Present results demonstrate attention bias patterns in adults with a history of childhood abuse and clarify the time course of attention bias. Results are discussed in the context of potential treatment implications.

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Cognitive Control in the Face of Fear: Reduced Cognitive-Emotional Flexibility in Women with a History of Child Abuse

Cited by 17 publications

References 46 publications

History of Childhood Abuse and Mother-Infant Interaction: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies

History of Childhood Abuse and Mother-Infant Interaction: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies

History of Childhood Maltreatment and College Academic Outcomes: Indirect Effects of Hot Execution Function

Childhood abuse history and attention bias in adults

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