Attention bias to emotional information in children as a function of maternal emotional disorders and maternal attention biases

• Examined attention bias in offspring of mothers with and without emotional disorders.
• Attention bias in high-risk children was significantly related to their mothers' attention bias.
• High-risk children showed a greater negative attention bias if their mothers had an attention bias away from positive stimuli.
• Attention bias for negative information could be a risk marker for emotional disorders in children.

Background and objectivesChildren of parents with emotional disorders have an increased risk for developing anxiety and depressive disorders. Yet the mechanisms that contribute to this increased risk are poorly understood. The present study aimed to examine attention biases in children as a function of maternal lifetime emotional disorders and maternal attention biases.MethodsThere were 134 participants, including 38 high-risk children, and their mothers who had lifetime emotional disorders; and 29 low-risk children, and their mothers without lifetime emotional disorders. Mothers and children completed a visual probe task with emotional face pairs presented for 500 ms.ResultsAttention bias in children did not significantly differ solely as a function of whether or not their mothers had lifetime emotional disorders. However, attention bias in high-risk children was significantly related to their mothers' attention bias. Specifically, children of mothers with lifetime emotional disorders showed a greater negative attention bias if their mothers had a greater tendency to direct attention away from positive information.LimitationsThis study was cross-sectional in nature, and therefore unable to assess long-term predictive effects. Also, just one exposure duration of 500 ms was utilised.ConclusionAttention bias for negative information is greater in offspring of mothers who have lifetime emotional disorders and a reduced positive bias, which could be a risk marker for the development of emotional disorders in children.