Trial reportThe British journal of developmental psychology2017
The effects of early institutionalization on emotional face processing: evidence for sparing via an experience-dependent mechanism.
Trial report in The British journal of developmental psychology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Electroencephalogram activity related to psychopathological and neuropsychological symptoms in institutionalised minors: a systematic review.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2025Pooled it
- The development of neural responses to emotional faces: A review of evidence from event-related potentials during early and middle childhood.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2021Pooled it
- Between faces: childhood adversity is associated with reduced threat-safety discrimination during facial expression processing in adolescence.BMC medicine · 2024Article
- Attentional processes in response to emotional facial expressions in adults with retrospectively reported peer victimization of varying severity: Results from an ERP dot-probe study.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- "And I still remember it to this day": A qualitative exploration of retrospective memories of school-based recess.Public health in practice (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Facial emotion processing and language during early-to-middle childhood development: An event related potential study.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2022Article
- Potential health-related behaviors for pre-school and school-aged children during COVID-19 lockdown: A narrative review.Preventive medicine · 2021Review
- Health-Related Behaviors Among School-Aged Children and Adolescents During the Spanish Covid-19 Confinement.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2020Article
- Friendship and social functioning following early institutional rearing: The role of ADHD symptoms.Development and psychopathology · 2019Article
- Socio-Emotional and Cognitive Development in Intrauterine Growth Restricted (IUGR) and Typical Development Infants: Early Interactive Patterns and Underlying Neural Correlates. Rationale and Methods of the Study.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2018Article
- Does Anhedonia Presage Increased Risk of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? : Adolescent Anhedonia and Posttraumatic Disorders.Current topics in behavioral neurosciencesArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Early psychosocial deprivation has profound adverse effects on children's brain and behavioural development, including abnormalities in physical growth, intellectual function, social cognition, and emotional development. Nevertheless, the domain of emotional face processing has appeared in previous research to be relatively spared; here, we test for possible sleeper effects emerging in early adolescence. This study employed event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the neural correlates of facial emotion processing in 12-year-old children who took part in a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an intervention for early institutionalization. Results revealed no significant group differences in two face and emotion-sensitive ERP components (P1 and N170), nor any association with age at placement or per cent of lifetime spent in an institution. These results converged with previous evidence from this population supporting relative sparing of facial emotion processing. We hypothesize that this sparing is due to an experience-dependent mechanism in which the amount of exposure to faces and facial expressions of emotion children received was sufficient to meet the low threshold required for cortical specialization of structures critical to emotion processing. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Early psychosocial deprivation leads to profoundly detrimental effects on children's brain and behavioural development. With respect to children's emotional face processing abilities, few adverse effects of institutionalized rearing have previously been reported. Recent studies suggest that 'sleeper effects' may emerge many years later, especially in the domain of face processing. What does this study add? Examining a cumulative 12 years of data, we found only minimal group differences and no evidence of a sleeper effect in this particular domain. These findings identify emotional face processing as a unique ability in which relative sparing can be found. We propose an experience-dependent mechanism in which the amount of social interaction children received met the low threshold required for cortical specialization.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.