FRANCES-EEG: Neurophysiological Correlates of Emotional Face Perception in the Mother–Child Dyad

This project addressed the question of how individual characteristics of two interaction partners—in this case, a mother–child dyad—influence the perception of socio-emotional stimuli that precede behavioural responses. In cooperation with the FAU University Hospital, it was possible to draw a subsample of 60 mother–child dyads (children aged 9–10 years) from an ongoing longitudinal study for a neurophysiological investigation. This study assessed maternal characteristics (affective symptoms, anxiety), child characteristics (attachment representations, emotion regulation), as well as dyadic measures (observations of interaction behaviour), and examined their associations with neurophysiological markers.

During a laboratory assessment, mothers and children were presented with a series of emotional facial expressions (including those of their own child or their own mother), while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Subsequently, event-related potentials (ERPs) were extracted from the EEG signal and related to the psychological variables.

Current status: Completed

Project leads: Melanie Kungl, Christine Heinisch, Gottfried Spangler

Publications to date:

Kungl, M.T. & Vrticka, P., Heinisch, C., Beckmann, M. W., Fasching, P. A., Ziegler, C., & Spangler, G. (2022). Deactivating attachment strategies associate with early processing of facial emotion and familiarity in middle childhood: an ERP study. Attachment & Human Development, 25(1), 199-217.

Kungl, M. T. & Rutherford, H. J., Heinisch, C., Beckmann, M. W., Fasching, P. A., & Spangler, G. (2020). Does anxiety impact the neural processing of child faces in mothers of school-aged children? An ERP study using an emotional Go/NoGo task. Social Neuroscience, 15(5), 530-543.