Pubertal Changes in Emotional Information Processing: Pupillary Behavioral and Subjective Evidence during Emotional Word Identification

摘要

This study investigated pupillary and behavioral responses to an emotional word valence identification paradigm among 32 pre/early and 34 mid/late pubertal typically developing children and adolescents. Participants were asked to identify the valence of positive, negative, and neutral words while pupil dilation was assessed using an eye-tracker. Mid-to-late pubertal children showed greater peak pupillary reactivity to words presented during the emotional word identification task than pre-to-early pubertal children, regardless of word valence. Mid-to-late pubertal children also showed smaller sustained pupil dilation than pre-to-early pubertal children after the word was no longer on screen. These findings were replicated controlling for participants’ age. Additionally, mid-to-late pubertal children had faster reaction times to all words, and rated themselves as more emotional during their laboratory visit compared to pre-to-early pubertal children. Greater recall of emotional words following the task was associated with mid-to-late pubertal status, and greater recall of emotional words was also associated with higher peak pupil dilation. These results provide physiological, behavioral, and subjective evidence consistent with a model of puberty-specific changes in neurobehavioral systems underpinning emotional reactivity.