WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A study conducted by researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York, has found that depression can change how children pay attention to facial expressions, including happy, sad and angry faces.
As part of the study, researchers tracked 242 children and their mothers over a period of two years. The participants were assessed once every six months.
During the assessments, children were shown two faces on a screen. One had a neutral expression, while the other showed happiness, sadness or anger. Using eye-tracking technology, researchers recorded which face the children looked at and how much time they spent looking at it.
The results showed that the way children responded to emotional faces was linked to their depressive symptoms and their mothers' history of depression.
'For those who are already at risk, the more these children experience depression themselves, the more they lose their ability to pull their attention away from the sad things around them,' said Brandon Gibb, director of the Mood Disorders Institute and SUNY distinguished professor of psychology.
Children whose mothers had experienced major depression paid more attention to sad faces as their own depressive symptoms increased. In contrast, children whose mothers had no history of depression showed reduced interest in happy faces when their depressive symptoms increased.
Looking forward, researchers are planning to continue to follow the children as they enter adolescence. They hope to understand whether these changes in attention could indicate a greater risk of developing clinical depression in the future.
'We know that when you're depressed, it changes what you pay attention to,' lead author Kelly Gair noted. 'Our results suggest that these changes may be more long-lasting and may differ depending on family history. One thought is that for children of mothers with depression, who are exposed to more facial displays of sadness from interactions with their mom, these types of facial expressions become even more salient when they experience depression themselves, so their attention becomes increasingly stuck on sad expressions.'
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