Browsing by Author "Diaz, Anjolii"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Attention Bias in Middle Childhood: The Impact of Effortful Control and Temperament
    Zerrouk, Mohamed (Virginia Tech, 2021-05)
    Identifying whether a stimulus is threatening or not is critical for staying safe. The faster one can detect a threat, the greater chance there is to avoid any potential danger. Factors contributing to the visual attention of threat are therefore informative. Previous research has examined how aspects of temperament and effortful control interact and affect the attention allocated to threats, especially in clinically anxious populations. However, there is a sparsity of this literature existing for nonclinical populations. My study addressed previous gaps by examining whether negative affect and fear impact an attention bias to threat in children aged 6 through 8 while assessing how attentional control and inhibitory control moderate these relations. A modified visual search task with snakes as the threat was given to the participants after the children’s parents completed questionnaires and the children completed an attentional control task. Results showed that an attentional bias to snakes was seen in the sample. Negative affect as a main effect nor as an interaction effect with attentional control predicted for the attention bias to snakes. Fear predicted for the attention bias to snakes as a main effect. Interestingly, inhibitory control moderated the relation between fear and the attention bias to snakes. Only children with high inhibitory control and high fear predicted for the attention bias to snakes. Findings may indicate children with this temperament are more vulnerable to the onset of anxiety.
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    The Impact of Fearfulness on Childhood Memory: Attention, Effortful Control, and Visual Recognition Memory
    Diaz, Anjolii (Virginia Tech, 2012-05-10)
    Fear is an integral and adaptive aspect of emotion related development (Gullone, 1999) and is one of the earliest regulatory systems influencing the control of behaviors (Rueda, Posner & Rothbart, 2004). This study examined the potential role of child fearfulness on the relation between attention, effortful control and visual recognition memory. Behavioral and physiological measurements of fear as well as measures of attention and recognition memory were examined. Behavioral tendencies of fearfulness rather than discrete behavioral acts were associated with right frontal asymmetry. VRM performance was also associated with more right frontal functioning. Fearfulness regulated the relation between attention and VRM as well as moderated the relation between effortful control and VRM. This study provided some evidence for the influencing role of normal variations of fear (i.e., non-clinical levels of fear) on the cognitive processes of developing children.
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    Temperament Differences in Fear Reactivity in Infancy: Frontal EEG Asymmetry and Recognition Memory
    Diaz, Anjolii (Virginia Tech, 2009-05-05)
    Findings that relate cognition and negative affect are not very consistent. However, according to Lazarus (1982) cognitive processes are key to the development and expression of emotions. This study examined the relations between temperament fear reactivity and visual recognition memory at ten months of age. Both behavioral and physiological measurements of fear reactivity and recognition memory were examined in order to further the understanding of temperamental fear in infancy, the relationship temperamental fear reactivity holds with visual recognition memory, and the development of prefrontal and medial temporal areas in the brain. Though both social and non-social fear tasks were examined, only infants who were fearful during stranger approach demonstrated greater novelty preference during the visual paired comparison task. Reactively fearful infants also demonstrated greater left frontal activation during familiarization and recognition memory indicative of better feature discrimination.
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    Using machine learning to understand age and gender classification based on infant temperament
    Gartstein, Maria A.; Seamon, D. Erich; Mattera, Jennifer A.; Enlow, Michelle Bosquet; Wright, Rosalind J.; Perez-Edgar, Koraly; Buss, Kristin A.; LoBue, Vanessa; Bell, Martha Ann; Goodman, Sherryl H.; Spieker, Susan; Bridgett, David J.; Salisbury, Amy L.; Gunnar, Megan R.; Mliner, Shanna B.; Muzik, Maria; Stifter, Cynthia A.; Planalp, Elizabeth M.; Mehr, Samuel A.; Spelke, Elizabeth S.; Lukowski, Angela F.; Groh, Ashley M.; Lickenbrock, Diane M.; Santelli, Rebecca; Schudlich, Tina Du Rocher; Anzman-Frasca, Stephanie; Thrasher, Catherine; Diaz, Anjolii; Dayton, Carolyn; Moding, Kameron J.; Jordan, Evan M. (PLOS, 2022-04-13)
    Age and gender differences are prominent in the temperament literature, with the former particularly salient in infancy and the latter noted as early as the first year of life. This study represents a meta-analysis utilizing Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R) data collected across multiple laboratories (N = 4438) to overcome limitations of smaller samples in elucidating links among temperament, age, and gender in early childhood. Algorithmic modeling techniques were leveraged to discern the extent to which the 14 IBQ-R subscale scores accurately classified participating children as boys (n = 2,298) and girls (n = 2,093), and into three age groups: youngest (< 24 weeks; n = 1,102), mid-range (24 to 48 weeks; n = 2,557), and oldest (> 48 weeks; n = 779). Additionally, simultaneous classification into age and gender categories was performed, providing an opportunity to consider the extent to which gender differences in temperament are informed by infant age. Results indicated that overall age group classification was more accurate than child gender models, suggesting that age-related changes are more salient than gender differences in early childhood with respect to temperament attributes. However, gender-based classification was superior in the oldest age group, suggesting temperament differences between boys and girls are accentuated with development. Fear emerged as the subscale contributing to accurate classifications most notably overall. This study leads infancy research and meta-analytic investigations more broadly in a new direction as a methodological demonstration, and also provides most optimal comparative data for the IBQ-R based on the largest and most representative dataset to date.