Age-related changes in attentional control across adolescence: how does this impact emotion regulation capacities?

ABSTRACT: This study set out to establish the novel use of the go/no-go Overlap task for investigating the role of attentional control capacities in the processing of emotional expressions across different age-groups within adolescence: at the onset of adolescence (11-12 year-olds) and toward the end of adolescence (17-18 year-olds). We also looked at how attentional control in the processing of fearful, happy, and neutral expressions relates to individual differences in trait anxiety in these adolescent groups. We were able to show that younger adolescents, but not older adolescents had more difficulties with attention control in the presence of all faces, but particularly in the presence of fearful faces. Moreover, we found that across all groups, adolescents with higher trait anxiety exhibited at

SUBMITTER: Cohen Kadosh K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3921606 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature