Schedule of Events | Symposia

The Relation of Early Adversity to Language Processing, Emotion Reactivity, and Working Memory

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Emily R. Drucker¹ (emilyrosadrucker@gmail.com), Alisha B. Compton², Claire M. Tate³, James R. Booth⁴; ¹Hunter College, ²Vanderbilt Brain Institute, ³Baylor College of Medicine, ⁴Vanderbilt Psychology and Human Development

Early adversity is known to affect emotion and cognition, but more research is needed on distinct effects of varying types of adversity. The dimensional model of adversity groups experiences postulated to have similar consequences and includes the dimensions of threat and deprivation. This project aims to examine deprivation as a unique factor underlying language skill, threat as a unique factor underlying emotion reactivity, and the relation of both to working memory, but perhaps more for deprivation. 48 children, 7-12 years (Mage=10.11), completed an experimental rhyming task that manipulates lexical processing (low- vs. high-frequency words), affective valence (negative vs. neutral images), and working memory (2- vs. 1-back load). Parents completed surveys on the child’s threat (VEX-R) and deprivation (ECLS) experiences. Using hierarchical regressions, we examined variance explained by threat and deprivation, above and beyond age and the other, in lexical processing, affective valence, and working memory performance. Trends suggest a unique relation of deprivation to lexical processing accuracy (ΔR2=7.44%, F(1,44)=3.91, p=0.054), and working memory reaction time variability (RTV; ΔR2=6.74%, F(1,44)=3.89, p=0.055), in line with a dimensional model. We also see a significant unique relation of threat to lexical processing RTV (ΔR2=9.28%, F(1,44)=6.08, p=0.018) and a trend with reaction time (ΔR2=4.87%, F(1,44)=2.96, p=0.09). Prior literature suggests threat, but not deprivation, relates to processing speed and response caution. Yet other studies have found an association between deprivation and response inhibition. To further examine associations of the dimensional model with RTV we will analyze a larger sample and examine relevant neural correlates with fMRI.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Development &aging