Performance Monitoring and Temperamental Fearfulness as Indices of Risk for Anxiety During Preschool

Résumé du livre

The current study was designed to examine neurophysiological processes of performance monitoring that have been suggested as a mechanism of risk for the development of anxiety in early childhood. Children who were putatively at risk for anxiety problems based on early temperamental fearfulness were compared with low-fear children. In addition, two aspects of feedback were examined as possible modulators of response monitoring: social and nonsocial feedback. Forty children were tested using a modified flanker paradigm when they were 4.5 years of age. Accuracy and reaction time measures were assessed along with affective behaviors during the laboratory visit and event-related potentials linked with performance monitoring. Results suggested that two performance monitoring event-related potentials, the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe) were present in children at age 4, much earlier than has been seen in previous research.^