Eye tracking study links children’s gaze patterns to depression risk
Binghamton researchers found depressive symptoms changed how children attended to happy and sad faces, with family history shaping the pattern.
By Lucas Ferreira · Science & Environment Writer
3 min read
Children’s eye movements may offer early clues about depression risk, according to research from Binghamton University. The study found that depressive symptoms were linked to shifts in how children looked at emotional faces, and those shifts differed by whether their mothers had a history of major depressive disorder.
The work, published in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, followed 242 children and their mothers over two years, Binghamton University said. Researchers assessed the participants every six months to study how depressive symptoms and attention patterns affected each other over time.
At each visit, children viewed pairs of faces on a screen. One face showed a neutral expression, while the other showed happiness, sadness or anger. Eye-tracking technology recorded which faces drew the children’s gaze and how long their attention stayed there, according to the university.
Kelly A. Gair, a Binghamton PhD student and lead author, worked on the study with Brandon E. Gibb of Binghamton University and Leslie A. Brick of the University of New Mexico. The researchers examined what they described as a two-way relationship between children’s depressive symptoms and their attention to emotional expressions across multiple time points.
Family history changed the pattern
Among children whose mothers had experienced major depressive disorder, rising depressive symptoms were associated with greater attention to sad faces, Binghamton University said. Gibb, director of the university’s Mood Disorders Institute and a SUNY distinguished professor of psychology, said the finding suggests higher-risk children may have more trouble shifting attention away from sadness as their own symptoms increase.
Gair said the results indicate that depression can shape what children notice in their surroundings, according to Binghamton. She also said the effect may last over time and may depend on family history, with sad expressions becoming more salient for children who have mothers with depression.
The study found a different pattern among children whose mothers had no history of depression. In that group, increases in depressive symptoms were tied to less attention to happy faces, according to the university.
Gibb said that in lower-risk children, depressive symptoms appeared to weaken a factor that may be protective: attention to positive emotional expressions. The study did not say that the gaze patterns alone diagnose depression or predict it with certainty.
Researchers are tracking children into adolescence
Binghamton University said its Mood Disorders Institute studies how depression emerges during childhood and adolescence, including the roles of family history and emotional experience. Gibb said studying children during development may help researchers identify vulnerabilities before they become stable.
The research team is continuing to follow the children as they enter adolescence, according to the university. The next question is whether these attention patterns increase the chance of later clinical depression.
The paper is titled “Transactional Relations Between Attentional Biases for Affective Stimuli and Depressive Symptoms in Offspring of Mothers With and Without Major Depressive Disorder.” The journal lists the DOI as 10.1037/abn0001132.
This story draws on original reporting from ScienceDaily.