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Autonomic Activity of Distraction Suppression and Early Adversity in Children

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 7, 2026, 3:00 – 5:00 pm PST, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Mohammad Soleyman Nejad¹ (soleymam@myumanitoba.ca), Serena Zaenali¹, Ryan Giuliano¹; ¹Hearts & Minds Lab, University of Manitoba

Research has documented relationships between socioeconomic adversity and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying selective attention in childhood. Adversity has been associated with reduced filtering of distractor stimuli as indexed by event-related potentials (ERPs), and some evidence suggests this effect is explained by adversity-related alterations in autonomic nervous system activity. Here, we aimed to replicate and extend that result with a sample of preschool-aged children recruited from a diverse array of socioeconomic backgrounds. Children (N=87) completed an ERP dichotic listening task, while electrocardiogram (ECG), and impedance cardiogram (ICG) data were recorded for measurement of parasympathetic (i.e., high-frequency heart rate variability, HRV) and sympathetic activity (i.e., pre-ejection period, PEP), respectively. Mean amplitudes of the primary auditory ERP (P1) were extracted from attended and unattended auditory probes as respective indices of target selection and distractor suppression. We failed to replicate a broad relationship between socioeconomic risk or poverty status with distractor suppression as indexed by P1 amplitudes, and no evidence emerged for mediation by PEP. Instead, children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds showed larger ERP amplitudes to attended stimuli, suggesting enhanced engagement with goal-relevant input rather than impaired suppression of distractors. Exploratory analyses revealed that HRV mediated associations between socioeconomic risk and P1 amplitudes, consistent with a neurovisceral-integration framework. These findings align with models of experiential canalization, proposing that children’s cognitive and physiological systems adaptively reorganize in response to environmental contingencies, and challenge deficit-based assumptions about adversity by demonstrating that attentional mechanisms in children from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds may be optimized for distinct environmental demands.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Development & aging