An Event-Related Potential Study of Social Information Processing in Adolescents.

Increased social awareness is a hallmark of adolescence. The primary aim of this event-related potential study was to investigate whether adolescents, in comparison to adults, would show relatively enhanced early neural processing of complex pictures containing socially-relevant information. A secon...

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Main Authors: Danielle diFilipo, Jillian Grose-Fifer
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2016-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154459&type=printable
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author Danielle diFilipo
Jillian Grose-Fifer
author_facet Danielle diFilipo
Jillian Grose-Fifer
author_sort Danielle diFilipo
collection DOAJ
description Increased social awareness is a hallmark of adolescence. The primary aim of this event-related potential study was to investigate whether adolescents, in comparison to adults, would show relatively enhanced early neural processing of complex pictures containing socially-relevant information. A secondary aim was to investigate whether there are also gender and age differences in the ways adolescents and adults process social and nonsocial information. We recorded EEGs from 12-17 year-olds and 25-37 year-olds (N = 59) while they viewed pleasant pictures from the International Affective Picture System. We found age-related amplitude differences in the N1 and the LPP, and gender-related differences in the N2 region for socially-relevant stimuli. Social pictures (featuring mostly young children and adults) elicited larger N1s than nonsocial stimuli in adolescents, but not adults, whereas larger LPPs to social stimuli were seen in adults, but not adolescents. Furthermore, in general, males (regardless of age) showed larger N2s to nonsocial than to social images, but females did not. Our results imply that compared to adults, adolescents show relatively greater initial orientation toward social than toward nonsocial stimuli.
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spelling doaj-art-e25ec9a4da3945a1b115bb7a9e9baf282025-08-20T02:15:45ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032016-01-01115e015445910.1371/journal.pone.0154459An Event-Related Potential Study of Social Information Processing in Adolescents.Danielle diFilipoJillian Grose-FiferIncreased social awareness is a hallmark of adolescence. The primary aim of this event-related potential study was to investigate whether adolescents, in comparison to adults, would show relatively enhanced early neural processing of complex pictures containing socially-relevant information. A secondary aim was to investigate whether there are also gender and age differences in the ways adolescents and adults process social and nonsocial information. We recorded EEGs from 12-17 year-olds and 25-37 year-olds (N = 59) while they viewed pleasant pictures from the International Affective Picture System. We found age-related amplitude differences in the N1 and the LPP, and gender-related differences in the N2 region for socially-relevant stimuli. Social pictures (featuring mostly young children and adults) elicited larger N1s than nonsocial stimuli in adolescents, but not adults, whereas larger LPPs to social stimuli were seen in adults, but not adolescents. Furthermore, in general, males (regardless of age) showed larger N2s to nonsocial than to social images, but females did not. Our results imply that compared to adults, adolescents show relatively greater initial orientation toward social than toward nonsocial stimuli.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154459&type=printable
spellingShingle Danielle diFilipo
Jillian Grose-Fifer
An Event-Related Potential Study of Social Information Processing in Adolescents.
PLoS ONE
title An Event-Related Potential Study of Social Information Processing in Adolescents.
title_full An Event-Related Potential Study of Social Information Processing in Adolescents.
title_fullStr An Event-Related Potential Study of Social Information Processing in Adolescents.
title_full_unstemmed An Event-Related Potential Study of Social Information Processing in Adolescents.
title_short An Event-Related Potential Study of Social Information Processing in Adolescents.
title_sort event related potential study of social information processing in adolescents
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154459&type=printable
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