Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2018 Aug;59(8):845-854. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12881. Epub 2018 Mar 7.
Emotion recognition skills are essential for social communication. Deficits in these skills have been implicated in mental disorders. Prior studies of clinical and high-risk samples have consistently shown that children exposed to adversity are more likely than their unexposed peers to have emotion recognition skills deficits. However, only one population-based study has examined this association.
We analyzed data from children participating in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a prospective birth cohort (n = 6,506). We examined the association between eight adversities, assessed repeatedly from birth to age 8 (caregiver physical or emotional abuse; sexual or physical abuse; maternal psychopathology; one adult in the household; family instability; financial stress; parent legal problems; neighborhood disadvantage) and the ability to recognize facial displays of emotion measured using the faces subtest of the Diagnostic Assessment of Non-Verbal Accuracy (DANVA) at age 8.5 years. In addition to examining the role of exposure (vs. nonexposure) to each type of adversity, we also evaluated the role of the timing, duration, and recency of each adversity using a Least Angle Regression variable selection procedure.
Over three-quarters of the sample experienced at least one adversity. We found no evidence to support an association between emotion recognition deficits and previous exposure to adversity, either in terms of total lifetime exposure, timing, duration, or recency, or when stratifying by sex.
Results from the largest population-based sample suggest that even extreme forms of adversity are unrelated to emotion recognition deficits as measured by the DANVA, suggesting the possible immutability of emotion recognition in the general population. These findings emphasize the importance of population-based studies to generate generalizable results.
情绪识别技能对于社交沟通至关重要。这些技能的缺陷与精神障碍有关。先前对临床和高危样本的研究一致表明，暴露于逆境中的儿童比未暴露于逆境的同龄人更有可能出现情绪识别技能缺陷。然而，仅有一项基于人群的研究检验了这种关联。
我们分析了参与阿冯纵向研究父母和孩子（Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children）的儿童的数据，该研究是一项前瞻性的出生队列研究（n=6506）。我们研究了从出生到 8 岁期间反复评估的八种逆境（照顾者身体或情感虐待；性或身体虐待；母亲精神病理学；家庭中有一个成年人；家庭不稳定；经济压力；父母法律问题；邻里劣势）与 8.5 岁时使用非言语准确性诊断评估（Diagnostic Assessment of Non-Verbal Accuracy，DANVA）面部子测试评估的情绪识别能力之间的关联。除了检验每种逆境暴露（vs. 未暴露）的作用外，我们还使用最小角回归变量选择程序评估了每种逆境的时间、持续时间和最近发生的作用。
超过四分之三的样本经历过至少一种逆境。我们没有发现证据支持情绪识别缺陷与先前暴露于逆境之间存在关联，无论是在总终生暴露、时间、持续时间或最近发生的情况下，还是在按性别分层的情况下。
来自最大人群样本的结果表明，即使是极端形式的逆境也与 DANVA 测量的情绪识别缺陷无关，这表明在一般人群中情绪识别可能具有不变性。这些发现强调了基于人群的研究对于产生可推广结果的重要性。
