Books by Georgia Chronaki
Overview
Key concepts
• Emotionality is an important concept in understanding social adjustme... more Overview
Key concepts
• Emotionality is an important concept in understanding social adjustment and mental health in
children and adolescents.
• Research and clinical practice have shown that individual differences in emotion processing are
closely related to children’s social adjustment.
• The ability to ‘read’ non-verbal cues of emotion in others, such as facial expressions, gestures, postures
and tone of voice, is fundamental to children’s social competence (Rothman and Nowicki, 2004).
• Children who are better able to understand nonverbal emotional cues in social interactions develop
better social skills and form positive interpersonal relationships over time (Saarni, 1999; Trentacosta
and Fine, 2010).
Papers by Georgia Chronaki
Humans have an innate set of emotions recognised universally. However, emotion recognition also d... more Humans have an innate set of emotions recognised universally. However, emotion recognition also depends on socio-cultural rules. Although adults recognise vocal emotions universally, they identify emotions more accurately in their native language. We examined developmental trajectories of universal vocal emotion recognition in children. Eighty native English speakers completed a vocal emotion recognition task in their native language (English) and foreign languages (Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic) expressing anger, happiness, sadness, fear, and neutrality. Emotion recognition was compared across 8-to-10, 11-to-13-year-olds, and adults. Measures of behavioural and emotional problems were also taken. Results showed that although emotion recognition was above chance for all languages, native English speaking children were more accurate in recognising vocal emotions in their native language. There was a larger improvement in recognising vocal emotion from the native language during adolescence. Vocal anger recognition did not improve with age for the non-native languages. This is the first study to demonstrate universality of vocal emotion recognition in children whilst supporting an " in-group advantage " for more accurate recognition in the native language. Findings highlight the role of experience in emotion recognition, have implications for child development in modern multicultural societies and address important theoretical questions about the nature of emotions. Vocal cues provide a rich source of information about a speaker's emotional state. The term 'prosody' derives from the Greek word 'prosodia' and refers to the changes in pitch, loudness, rhythm, and voice quality corresponding to a person's emotional state 1,2. Recent debates have focused on whether the ability to recognise vocal emotion is universal (e.g., due to biological significance to conspecifics) or whether it is influenced by learning, experience, or maturation 3,4. It is argued that humans have an innate, core set of emotions which seem to be expressed and recognised universally 5. However, the way emotional expressions are perceived can be highly dependent on learning and culture 6. It has been argued that when attending to the prosody conveyed in speech, listeners apply universal principles enabling them to recognise emotions in speech from foreign languages as accurately as their native language 7. However, it is also argued that cultural and social influences create subtle stylistic differences in emotional prosody perception 3. In addition, cultural influences may impact on how listeners interpret emotional meaning from prosody 8. This is known as an " in-group advantage " enabling listeners to recognise emotional expressions in their native language more accurately than in a foreign languages 7. Previous research has provided support for the hypothesis of an " in-group advantage " in the recognition of vocal emotional expressions. Recent studies by Pell and colleagues 9 used pseudo-utterances produced by Spanish, English, German, and Arabic actors in five different emotions (anger, disgust, fear, sadness and happiness) as well as neutral expressions. Pseudo-utterances reduce the effect of meaningful lexical-semantic information on the perception of vocally expressed emotions and mimic the phonotactic and morpho-syntactic properties of the
Introduction: The emergence of anxiety during childhood is accompanied by the development of atte... more Introduction: The emergence of anxiety during childhood is accompanied by the development of attentional biases to threat. However, the neural mechanisms underlying these biases are poorly understood. In addition, previous research has not examined whether state and trait anxiety are independently associated with threat-related biases. Methods: We compared ERP waveforms during the processing of emotional faces in a population sample of 58 6–11-year-olds who completed self-reported measures of trait and state anxiety and depression. Results: The results showed that the P1 was larger to angry than neutral faces in the left hemisphere, though early components (P1, N170) were not strongly associated with child anxiety or depression. In contrast, Late Positive Potential (LPP) amplitudes to angry (vs. neutral) faces were significantly and positively associated with symptoms of anxiety/depression. In addition, the difference between LPPs for angry (vs. neutral) faces was independently associated with state and trait anxiety symptoms. Discussion: The results showed that neural responses to facial emotion in children with elevated symptoms of anxiety and depression were most evident at later processing stages characterized as evaluative and effortful. The findings support cognitive models of threat perception in anxiety and indicate that trait elements of anxiety and more transitory fluctuations in anxious affect are important in understanding individual variation in the neural response to threat in late childhood.
Objective
Neural hypo-sensitivity to cues predicting positive reinforcement has been observed in ... more Objective
Neural hypo-sensitivity to cues predicting positive reinforcement has been observed in ADHD using the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task. Here we report the first study using an electrophysiological analogue of this task to distinguish between (i) cue related anticipation of reinforcement and downstream effects on (ii) target engagement and (iii) performance in a clinical sample of adolescents with ADHD and controls.
Methods
Thirty-one controls and 32 adolescents with ADHD aged 10-16 years performed the electrophysiological (e)-MID task − in which preparatory cues signal whether a response to an upcoming target will be reinforced or not − under three conditions; positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement (response cost) and no consequence (neutral). We extracted values for both cue-related potentials known to be, both, associated with response preparation and modulated by reinforcement (Cue P3 and Cue CNV) and target-related potentials (target P3) and compared these between ADHD and controls.
Results
ADHD and controls did not differ on cue-related components on neutral trials. Against expectation, adolescents with ADHD displayed Cue P3 and Cue CNV reinforcement-related enhancement (versus neutral trials) compared to controls. ADHD individuals displayed smaller target P3 amplitudes and slower and more variable performance − but effects were not modulated by reinforcement contingencies. When age, IQ and conduct problems were controlled effects were marginally significant but the pattern of results did not change.
Discussion
ADHD was associated with hypersensitivity to positive (and marginally negative) reinforcement reflected on components often thought to be associated with response preparation − however these did not translate into improved attention to targets. In the case of ADHD, upregulated CNV may be a specific marker of hyper-arousal rather than an enhancement of anticipatory attention to upcoming targets. Future studies should examine the effects of age, IQ and conduct problems on reinforcement sensitivity in ADHD.
In recent years there has been increasing interest in the neural mechanisms underlying altered em... more In recent years there has been increasing interest in the neural mechanisms underlying altered emotional processes in children and adolescents with psychopathology. This review provides a brief overview of the most up-to-date findings in the field of event-related potentials (ERPs) to facial and vocal emotional expressions in the most common child psychopathological conditions. In regards to externalizing behavior (i.e., ADHD, CD), ERP studies show enhanced early components to anger, reflecting enhanced sensory processing, followed by reductions in later components to anger, reflecting reduced cognitive-evaluative processing. In regards to internalizing behavior, research supports models of increased processing of threat stimuli especially at later more elaborate and effortful stages. Finally, in autism spectrum disorders abnormalities have been observed at early visual-perceptual stages of processing. An affective neuroscience framework for understanding child psychopathology can be valuable in elucidating underlying mechanisms and inform preventive intervention.
Sensitivity to facial and vocal emotion is fundamental to children's social competence. Previous ... more Sensitivity to facial and vocal emotion is fundamental to children's social competence. Previous research has focused on children's facial emotion recognition, and few studies have investigated non-linguistic vocal emotion processing in childhood. We compared facial and vocal emotion recognition and processing biases in 4- to 11-year-olds and adults. Eighty-eight 4- to 11-year-olds and 21 adults participated. Participants viewed/listened to faces and voices (angry, happy, and sad) at three intensity levels (50%, 75%, and 100%). Non-linguistic tones were used. For each modality, participants completed an emotion identification task. Accuracy and bias for each emotion and modality were compared across 4- to 5-, 6- to 9- and 10- to 11-year-olds and adults. The results showed that children's emotion recognition improved with age; preschoolers were less accurate than other groups. Facial emotion recognition reached adult levels by 11 years, whereas vocal emotion recognition continued to develop in late childhood. Response bias decreased with age. For both modalities, sadness recognition was delayed across development relative to anger and happiness. The results demonstrate that developmental trajectories of emotion processing differ as a function of emotion type and stimulus modality. In addition, vocal emotion processing showed a more protracted developmental trajectory, compared to facial emotion processing. The results have important implications for programmes aiming to improve children's socio-emotional competence.
Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express, 2015
Chronaki, Georgia, Garner Matthew, Hadwin, Julie, Thompson, Margaret, Chin, Cheryl, Sonuga-Barke, Edmund, J.S. (2013). Emotion Recognition abilities and behaviour problem dimensions in preschoolers: Evidence for a specific role of childhood hyperactivity, Child Neuropsychology
Broyd, Samantha J, Richards Helen J., Helps Suzannah K., Chronaki, Georgia, Bamford, Susan and Sonuga-Barke, Edmund, J.S. (2012). An electrophysiological Monetary Incentive Delay (e-MID) task. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 209, (1), 40-49.
Broyd, Samantha J., Richards, Helen J., Helps Suzannah K., Chronaki Georgia, Bamford Susan and Sonuga-Barke, Edmund J.S. (2012). Electrophysiological markers of the motivational salience of delay imposition and escape, Neuropsychologia, 50 (5), 965-972
Introduction: Vocal anger is a salient social signal serving adaptive functions in typical child ... more Introduction: Vocal anger is a salient social signal serving adaptive functions in typical child development. Despite recent advances in the developmental neuroscience of emotion processing with regard to visual stimuli, little remains known about the neural correlates of vocal anger processing in childhood. This study represents the first attempt to isolate a neural marker of vocal anger processing in children using electrophysiological methods.
Methods: We compared ERP wave forms during the processing of non-word emotional vocal stimuli in a population sample of 55 6-11-year-old typically developing children. Children listened to three types of stimuli expressing angry, happy, and neutral prosody and completed an emotion identification task with three response options (angry, happy and neutral/‘ok’).
Results: A distinctive N400 component which was modulated by emotional content of vocal stimulus was observed in children over parietal and occipital scalp regions - amplitudes were significantly attenuated to angry compared to happy and neutral voices.
Discussion: Findings of the present study regarding the N400 are compatible with adult studies showing reduced N400 amplitudes to negative compared to neutral emotional stimuli. Implications for studies of the neural basis of vocal anger processing in children are discussed.
Talks by Georgia Chronaki
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Books by Georgia Chronaki
Key concepts
• Emotionality is an important concept in understanding social adjustment and mental health in
children and adolescents.
• Research and clinical practice have shown that individual differences in emotion processing are
closely related to children’s social adjustment.
• The ability to ‘read’ non-verbal cues of emotion in others, such as facial expressions, gestures, postures
and tone of voice, is fundamental to children’s social competence (Rothman and Nowicki, 2004).
• Children who are better able to understand nonverbal emotional cues in social interactions develop
better social skills and form positive interpersonal relationships over time (Saarni, 1999; Trentacosta
and Fine, 2010).
Papers by Georgia Chronaki
Neural hypo-sensitivity to cues predicting positive reinforcement has been observed in ADHD using the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task. Here we report the first study using an electrophysiological analogue of this task to distinguish between (i) cue related anticipation of reinforcement and downstream effects on (ii) target engagement and (iii) performance in a clinical sample of adolescents with ADHD and controls.
Methods
Thirty-one controls and 32 adolescents with ADHD aged 10-16 years performed the electrophysiological (e)-MID task − in which preparatory cues signal whether a response to an upcoming target will be reinforced or not − under three conditions; positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement (response cost) and no consequence (neutral). We extracted values for both cue-related potentials known to be, both, associated with response preparation and modulated by reinforcement (Cue P3 and Cue CNV) and target-related potentials (target P3) and compared these between ADHD and controls.
Results
ADHD and controls did not differ on cue-related components on neutral trials. Against expectation, adolescents with ADHD displayed Cue P3 and Cue CNV reinforcement-related enhancement (versus neutral trials) compared to controls. ADHD individuals displayed smaller target P3 amplitudes and slower and more variable performance − but effects were not modulated by reinforcement contingencies. When age, IQ and conduct problems were controlled effects were marginally significant but the pattern of results did not change.
Discussion
ADHD was associated with hypersensitivity to positive (and marginally negative) reinforcement reflected on components often thought to be associated with response preparation − however these did not translate into improved attention to targets. In the case of ADHD, upregulated CNV may be a specific marker of hyper-arousal rather than an enhancement of anticipatory attention to upcoming targets. Future studies should examine the effects of age, IQ and conduct problems on reinforcement sensitivity in ADHD.
Methods: We compared ERP wave forms during the processing of non-word emotional vocal stimuli in a population sample of 55 6-11-year-old typically developing children. Children listened to three types of stimuli expressing angry, happy, and neutral prosody and completed an emotion identification task with three response options (angry, happy and neutral/‘ok’).
Results: A distinctive N400 component which was modulated by emotional content of vocal stimulus was observed in children over parietal and occipital scalp regions - amplitudes were significantly attenuated to angry compared to happy and neutral voices.
Discussion: Findings of the present study regarding the N400 are compatible with adult studies showing reduced N400 amplitudes to negative compared to neutral emotional stimuli. Implications for studies of the neural basis of vocal anger processing in children are discussed.
Talks by Georgia Chronaki
Key concepts
• Emotionality is an important concept in understanding social adjustment and mental health in
children and adolescents.
• Research and clinical practice have shown that individual differences in emotion processing are
closely related to children’s social adjustment.
• The ability to ‘read’ non-verbal cues of emotion in others, such as facial expressions, gestures, postures
and tone of voice, is fundamental to children’s social competence (Rothman and Nowicki, 2004).
• Children who are better able to understand nonverbal emotional cues in social interactions develop
better social skills and form positive interpersonal relationships over time (Saarni, 1999; Trentacosta
and Fine, 2010).
Neural hypo-sensitivity to cues predicting positive reinforcement has been observed in ADHD using the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task. Here we report the first study using an electrophysiological analogue of this task to distinguish between (i) cue related anticipation of reinforcement and downstream effects on (ii) target engagement and (iii) performance in a clinical sample of adolescents with ADHD and controls.
Methods
Thirty-one controls and 32 adolescents with ADHD aged 10-16 years performed the electrophysiological (e)-MID task − in which preparatory cues signal whether a response to an upcoming target will be reinforced or not − under three conditions; positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement (response cost) and no consequence (neutral). We extracted values for both cue-related potentials known to be, both, associated with response preparation and modulated by reinforcement (Cue P3 and Cue CNV) and target-related potentials (target P3) and compared these between ADHD and controls.
Results
ADHD and controls did not differ on cue-related components on neutral trials. Against expectation, adolescents with ADHD displayed Cue P3 and Cue CNV reinforcement-related enhancement (versus neutral trials) compared to controls. ADHD individuals displayed smaller target P3 amplitudes and slower and more variable performance − but effects were not modulated by reinforcement contingencies. When age, IQ and conduct problems were controlled effects were marginally significant but the pattern of results did not change.
Discussion
ADHD was associated with hypersensitivity to positive (and marginally negative) reinforcement reflected on components often thought to be associated with response preparation − however these did not translate into improved attention to targets. In the case of ADHD, upregulated CNV may be a specific marker of hyper-arousal rather than an enhancement of anticipatory attention to upcoming targets. Future studies should examine the effects of age, IQ and conduct problems on reinforcement sensitivity in ADHD.
Methods: We compared ERP wave forms during the processing of non-word emotional vocal stimuli in a population sample of 55 6-11-year-old typically developing children. Children listened to three types of stimuli expressing angry, happy, and neutral prosody and completed an emotion identification task with three response options (angry, happy and neutral/‘ok’).
Results: A distinctive N400 component which was modulated by emotional content of vocal stimulus was observed in children over parietal and occipital scalp regions - amplitudes were significantly attenuated to angry compared to happy and neutral voices.
Discussion: Findings of the present study regarding the N400 are compatible with adult studies showing reduced N400 amplitudes to negative compared to neutral emotional stimuli. Implications for studies of the neural basis of vocal anger processing in children are discussed.