Maria Balle - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Maria Balle

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, 2019

This paper introduces a new measure to evaluate heart output from a dynamical systems approach. T... more This paper introduces a new measure to evaluate heart output from a dynamical systems approach. The measure is based on the time delay technique for two-dimensional state space reconstruction from time series of interbeat intervals. The system's trajectories within this space are depicted and the mean distance, as well as the total and maximum distances travelled by the system, are calculated in pixels. Preliminary data from adolescents with highly positive emotional regulation (HPER) style (n=10) and adolescents with highly negative (HNER) style (n=10) who underwent a protocol of stress induction show the usefulness of the new metrics to distinguish the dynamical behavior of the heart systems from these groups. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that changes in all three distances across conditions (baseline, anticipation of stress, exposure to stress, and recovery) were significant in the HPER group but not in the HNER group. As to the physiological meaning of the new measure a...

Behavioral Sciences

Growing evidence supports the hypothesis that temperamental traits are not static throughout adol... more Growing evidence supports the hypothesis that temperamental traits are not static throughout adolescence. The known links between both reactive and regulatory temperament and anxiety symptoms should be investigated bearing this hypothesis in mind. This study collected self-reported data on behavioral inhibition system (BIS) sensitivity, attentional control (AC), and anxiety symptomatology, from 296 adolescents (64.2% girls; M = 12.96 years at the first assessment, SD = 0.47) every six months, four times over eighteen months. The relationships between temperament factors (AC and BIS sensitivity), considered longitudinally (by means of their trajectories) and anxiety symptoms were investigated using Multigroup Latent Growth Modeling (MLGM), as well as the mediating effect of sex on trajectories and anxiety. BIS sensitivity decreased over time and showed differential patterns across sexes. AC remained relatively stable and we found no sex influence on its trajectory. On the other hand,...

Psychophysiology, 2019

How well adolescents can self-regulate in the face of stressors has considerable implications for... more How well adolescents can self-regulate in the face of stressors has considerable implications for long-term well-being and risk of psychopathology. This study investigated sex differences in adolescents' cardiac reactivity and recovery during a stressful task. Measures of cardiac variability (linear) and complexity (nonlinear) were obtained from N = 92 adolescents, 41 males (M age = 13.28, SD = 0.69; BMI = 21.9) and 51 females (M age = 13.36, SD = 0.67; BMI = 21.5). The adolescents underwent the Trier Social Stress Test, consisting of five conditions: baseline, anticipation, social exposure, math task, and recovery. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that female in comparison to male adolescents showed lower cardiac complexity revealed by higher short-term scaling exponent at baseline (p = .006) and math (p = .013) and lower entropy at exposure (p = .013) and math (p = .012). A marginal between-groups effect was found for Higuchi's fractal dimension, F(1, 90) = 3.67, p = .059, η p 2 = .041, with females showing lower fractal dimension than males in math (p = .037). Linear measures did not reveal sex-related differences. Results suggest that adolescent females show lower cardiac complexity during stress. These findings support the importance of nonlinear cardiac measures for understanding cardiac reactivity during stress. Further research is needed to test the hypothesis that cardiac complexity is useful to detect an increased risk of emotional disorders, disorders that are more prevalent in women.

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, 2020

An inverted U-shaped pattern in heart rate (HR) and a U-shaped pattern in heart rate variability ... more An inverted U-shaped pattern in heart rate (HR) and a U-shaped pattern in heart rate variability (HRV) are easily recognizable when individuals experience any acute stressor. How cardiac complexity (scaling and entropy) changes under acute stress is not well known. Psychologically, emotion regulation (ER) style is likely to influence the individual's specific behavioral response when affronting stress. This study tested whether adolescents with distinct ER styles would show different patterns of linear and nonlinear cardiac changes under stressful conditions. We predicted less autonomic flexibility for adolescents with a highly negative emotional regulation (HNER) style (n = 10) than for those adolescents with a highly positive emotional regulation (HPER) style (n=10). Further, associations between linear and nonlinear measures during each condition were examined for each group. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that HR and HRV changed according to the predicted pattern. Higuchi...

International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 2016

Introducción/Objetivo: Se ha asociado la existencia de sintomatología ansiosa con algunas propied... more Introducción/Objetivo: Se ha asociado la existencia de sintomatología ansiosa con algunas propiedades lineales de la variabilidad cardiaca (VC), sin prestar demasiada atención a propiedades más esenciales del sistema cardiaco, como su naturaleza fractal. En este trabajo se pretendía evaluar si medidas de fractalidad (exponentes alométricos) y medi - das de VC (potencia en la banda de altas frecuencias, AF) permitían distinguir entre 24 adolescentes con alta sintomatología ansiosa y 26 adolescentes con baja. Además, se perseguía explorar las asociaciones de estas medidas con sensibilidad al castigo (SC), un factor de riesgo para ansiedad. Método: Se tomó la actividad cardiaca de los adolescen - tes en contexto ecológico y se calcularon dichas medidas sobre registros de 90 minutos. Resultados: Se encontraron exponentes alométricos significativamente mayores para los adolescentes con alta ansiedad ( p < 0,05), sin observarse diferencias significativas en potencia de AF ( p = 0,057)....

Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback

The present study aimed to provide further evidence on the usefulness of non-linear cardiac measu... more The present study aimed to provide further evidence on the usefulness of non-linear cardiac measures when examining the output of the cardiac system. Scale-invariant self-similarity and entropy, in addition to heart rate variability (HRV) given by time- and frequency-domain measures were calculated in a sample of N = 55 healthy adolescents (Mage = 14.122, SDage = 0.698) during 10-min positive (non-stressful) and negative (stressful) interactions with their mothers. We also explored sex influence in adolescents' cardiac output using both HRV measures and non-linear cardiac measures. Repeated measures MANOVA revealed a marginal within-group effect for HRV measures, F(3,51) = 2.438, p = 0.075, η2p = 0.125), and a significant within-group effect for non-linear cardiac measures, F(6, 48) = 3.296, p = 0.009, η2p = 0.292, showing a significant decrement in adolescents' cardiac complexity during the negative interaction. No significant effect for sex was found in either non-linear cardiac measures or HRV measures, but results suggest lower cardiac scaling in females than in males. These findings suggest a real-time scale predominance in heart rate output when adolescents face an aversive situation and support the importance of non-linear cardiac measures to gain insight into the cardiac system and its regulatory mechanisms. Further research is needed to examine sex-differences in cardiac complexity during aversive situations.

Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, 2018

The risk of suffering anxiety disorders is associated with sustained subthreshold symptoms of anx... more The risk of suffering anxiety disorders is associated with sustained subthreshold symptoms of anxiety. This study evaluated the stability of anxiety scores (high, moderate or low) across a six-month period in early adolescents (N = 95). The associations between sustained anxiety, vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), sympathetic activity, and heart rate fractal dynamics in everyday life conditions were analyzed. The anxiety scores from 71.50% of participants remained at the same level. The linear correlations between anxiety and cardiac measures were weak but a group-based approach revealed that the fractal dimension (FD) from stable-low anxiety participants was higher than the FD from participants with stable-moderate anxiety scores but not higher than the FD from the stable-high anxiety group. The short-term correlations' exponent a1 from the stable-high anxiety group was higher than the a1 from the stable-moderate anxiety group but not higher than the exponent from...

Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, 2017

Many physiological systems are multistable, i.e. they operate at different time scales under an a... more Many physiological systems are multistable, i.e. they operate at different time scales under an allometric control process. The multistability of affective fluctuations has been clearly illustrated in a sample of adults, but little is known about their dynamics in adolescents. The main aim of this study was to determine whether affective fluctuations in adolescents show multistability and to explore their relationship with anxiety symptomatology and temperamental factors. Twenty-five early adolescents self-reported their daily mood, anxiety and worry levels twice a day over a 100-day period. The time series were analysed using the allometric aggregation method to obtain the scaling exponent h. Almost all the (Hurst) scaling exponents were 0.5 > h > 1. The worry exponents were related to temperament factors, whereas the anxiety exponents were related to social phobia symptoms. The results substantiate that affective fluctuations in adolescents are multistable, lending support t...

Child Psychiatry & Human Development

This study explored the association between temperament—i.e., positive affect (PA) and negative a... more This study explored the association between temperament—i.e., positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA)—and emotion regulation (ER), and what momentary factors influence the selection of rumination or reappraisal during adolescents’ daily life. The type of social situation in which negative events occurred, the self-rated degrees of discomfort, the types of predominant emotions experienced, and the use of reappraisal and rumination were assessed at 24 different times with an ecological momentary assessment approach given to 71 adolescents. PA, NA, and ER style were evaluated using self-reports. Bivariate Pearson correlations analysis revealed that NA and negative ER style correlated positively with the rumination use whereas PA correlated negatively with the rumination use. Negative ER style moderated the relationship between NA and the frequency with which rumination was used. The moderated function of positive ER style could not be tested due to its lack of association with th...

Título: La Escala de Control Intencional para adultos: propiedades psicométricas de la versión ca... more Título: La Escala de Control Intencional para adultos: propiedades psicométricas de la versión catalana y sus relaciones con la regulación emocional cognitiva. Resumen: Los objetivos del estudio fueron (a) examinar las propiedades

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, 2020

This paper aimed to (a) validate a novel technique that quantifies the length of the trajectories... more This paper aimed to (a) validate a novel technique that quantifies the length of the trajectories the cardiac system follows within a two-dimensional state-space, and (b) test its usefulness to better understand how cognitive emotion regulation (CER) style is associated with cardiac output. A positive CER style was assessed in a sample of healthy adolescents (n = 57), and mean and total distances, in addition to heart rate variability (HRV) measures and cardiac entropy (SampEn), were calculated during a conflict discussion with the adolescents' mothers. Associations between distances and HRV measures in time and frequency-domains and SampEn were examined to better understand the physiological meaning of distances; further, whether a positive CER style would predict distances, HRV, and SampEn. Correlation analysis revealed that associations of distances with time-domain HRV measures were stronger than associations with frequency-domain HRV measures, while correlations between dis...

En esta trabajo se analizan las propiedades psicometricas de una version catalana de la Escala de... more En esta trabajo se analizan las propiedades psicometricas de una version catalana de la Escala de Ansiedad en Ninos/-as de Spence (Spance Children's Anxiety Scale, SCAS) (Spence, 1998), en una muestra de 692 ninos y jovenes de ensenanza primaria y secundaria obligatoria. La version catalana de la SCAS presenta una fiabilidad y consistencia interna elevada, una buena validez convergente y discriminante, semejantes a los resultados de la version inglesa. En cuanto a la estructura factorial se obtienen 6 factores a partir del analisis de componentes principales, ligeramente distintos a los informados en los trabajos del grupo de Spenca. Se discute la semejanza de nuestros resultados con los encontrados en la investigacion previa sobre la SCAS.

Physiological systems need to be flexible in order to adapt to a changing environment. Negative e... more Physiological systems need to be flexible in order to adapt to a changing environment. Negative events, however, induce flexibility reductions that seem necessary for coping purposes. To date, studies have measured linear variability and entropy in heart output, but none have examined the scaling properties of the cardiac system when individuals deal with stressful everyday events. This study was aimed at testing the hypothesis that the complexity of the cardiac dynamics is diminished when individuals face negative events in real life. Cardiac variability (linear) and complexity (nonlinear), as well as discomfort and effectiveness of event-related emotion regulation (EER) were ecologically examined in N = 65 adolescents (Mage = 14.80 years; SDage = 0.86; 55.38% girls). Repeated Measures MANOVAs revealed higher heart rate (HR) and lower cardiac complexity (higher long-term scaling exponent, p = .029; lower Fractal Dimension FD, p = .030; and lower Sample Entropy, p = .001) during EER...

Journal of Affective Disorders

Background: Anxiety disorders frequently have an onset during adolescence, which when left untrea... more Background: Anxiety disorders frequently have an onset during adolescence, which when left untreated could lead to a chronic course and outcome. This study aimed to examine the way in which a cognitive behaviour therapy-based programme (Super Skills for Lifeadolescent version; SSL-A) could change the course of anxiety symptoms through adolescent's behavioural performance and cardiac function. Method: Sixty-one adolescents at risk of developing an anxiety disorder (45.30% boys; M = 13.76 years, SD = 0.32) were randomly assigned to either the intervention (IG), placebo (PG), or waitlist group (WG). Adolescents in the IG participated in SSL-A over an 8-week period. Adolescents in the PG participated in an 8-session school-work programme. Adolescents in the WG did not receive any intervention. Anxiety symptoms were assessed every six months, twice before intervention, as well as at postand six months after the intervention. Participants in the IG additionally underwent a stressful task to assess behavioural performance and cardiac adjustment. Results: Adolescents in the IG significantly reported lower levels of social phobia and generalised anxiety symptoms at the follow-up assessment compared to the adolescents in the PG and the WG. They also showed a significant improvement in vocal quality and lower discomfort during a stressful task at post-intervention, and showed attenuated cardiac recovery indexes, in terms of sample entropy. Limitations: The study has a small sample size. Conclusion: SSL-A changed natural course of anxiety symptoms, as shown by a significant reduction in social phobia and generalised anxiety symptoms, and a significant improvement in behaviour and physiological (cardiac) function during a stressful situation.

Psychology in the Schools

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Adolescence is a vulnerable period for depressive and anxious symptom development, and emotion re... more Adolescence is a vulnerable period for depressive and anxious symptom development, and emotion regulation (ER) may be one mechanism linking temperament—i.e., positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA)—with such symptomatology. Rumination is a common ER strategy that is traditionally assessed using self-reported questionnaires, but it would also be interesting to examine it with an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) approach. Sixty-five adolescents (Mage = 14.69; SDage = 0.82; range = 14–17 years old; 53.80% girls) completed self-report measures of temperament, ER style, depression and anxiety, and underwent an EMA to investigate rumination use. Results revealed that negative ER style and rumination use mediated the relationship between NA and depression, while only rumination use mediated the relationship between PA and depression. Moreover, NA contributed to increase anxiety, but negative ER style did not significantly mediate this relationship. Rumination use also had no eff...

Developmental Psychobiology

Child Psychiatry & Human Development

Anxiety, Stress, & Coping

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, Jul 1, 2017

Many physiological systems are multistable, i.e. they operate at different time scales under an a... more Many physiological systems are multistable, i.e. they operate at different time scales under an allometric control process. The multistability of affective fluctuations has been clearly illustrated in a sample of adults, but little is known about their dynamics in adolescents. The main aim of this study was to determine whether affective fluctuations in adolescents show multistability and to explore their relationship with anxiety symptomatology and temperamental factors. Twenty-five early adolescents self-reported their daily mood, anxiety and worry levels twice a day over a 100-day period. The time series were analysed using the allometric aggregation method to obtain the scaling exponent h. Almost all the (Hurst) scaling exponents were 0.5 > h > 1. The worry exponents were related to temperament factors, whereas the anxiety exponents were related to social phobia symptoms. The results substantiate that affective fluctuations in adolescents are multistable, lending support t...

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, 2019

This paper introduces a new measure to evaluate heart output from a dynamical systems approach. T... more This paper introduces a new measure to evaluate heart output from a dynamical systems approach. The measure is based on the time delay technique for two-dimensional state space reconstruction from time series of interbeat intervals. The system's trajectories within this space are depicted and the mean distance, as well as the total and maximum distances travelled by the system, are calculated in pixels. Preliminary data from adolescents with highly positive emotional regulation (HPER) style (n=10) and adolescents with highly negative (HNER) style (n=10) who underwent a protocol of stress induction show the usefulness of the new metrics to distinguish the dynamical behavior of the heart systems from these groups. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that changes in all three distances across conditions (baseline, anticipation of stress, exposure to stress, and recovery) were significant in the HPER group but not in the HNER group. As to the physiological meaning of the new measure a...

Behavioral Sciences

Growing evidence supports the hypothesis that temperamental traits are not static throughout adol... more Growing evidence supports the hypothesis that temperamental traits are not static throughout adolescence. The known links between both reactive and regulatory temperament and anxiety symptoms should be investigated bearing this hypothesis in mind. This study collected self-reported data on behavioral inhibition system (BIS) sensitivity, attentional control (AC), and anxiety symptomatology, from 296 adolescents (64.2% girls; M = 12.96 years at the first assessment, SD = 0.47) every six months, four times over eighteen months. The relationships between temperament factors (AC and BIS sensitivity), considered longitudinally (by means of their trajectories) and anxiety symptoms were investigated using Multigroup Latent Growth Modeling (MLGM), as well as the mediating effect of sex on trajectories and anxiety. BIS sensitivity decreased over time and showed differential patterns across sexes. AC remained relatively stable and we found no sex influence on its trajectory. On the other hand,...

Psychophysiology, 2019

How well adolescents can self-regulate in the face of stressors has considerable implications for... more How well adolescents can self-regulate in the face of stressors has considerable implications for long-term well-being and risk of psychopathology. This study investigated sex differences in adolescents' cardiac reactivity and recovery during a stressful task. Measures of cardiac variability (linear) and complexity (nonlinear) were obtained from N = 92 adolescents, 41 males (M age = 13.28, SD = 0.69; BMI = 21.9) and 51 females (M age = 13.36, SD = 0.67; BMI = 21.5). The adolescents underwent the Trier Social Stress Test, consisting of five conditions: baseline, anticipation, social exposure, math task, and recovery. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that female in comparison to male adolescents showed lower cardiac complexity revealed by higher short-term scaling exponent at baseline (p = .006) and math (p = .013) and lower entropy at exposure (p = .013) and math (p = .012). A marginal between-groups effect was found for Higuchi's fractal dimension, F(1, 90) = 3.67, p = .059, η p 2 = .041, with females showing lower fractal dimension than males in math (p = .037). Linear measures did not reveal sex-related differences. Results suggest that adolescent females show lower cardiac complexity during stress. These findings support the importance of nonlinear cardiac measures for understanding cardiac reactivity during stress. Further research is needed to test the hypothesis that cardiac complexity is useful to detect an increased risk of emotional disorders, disorders that are more prevalent in women.

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, 2020

An inverted U-shaped pattern in heart rate (HR) and a U-shaped pattern in heart rate variability ... more An inverted U-shaped pattern in heart rate (HR) and a U-shaped pattern in heart rate variability (HRV) are easily recognizable when individuals experience any acute stressor. How cardiac complexity (scaling and entropy) changes under acute stress is not well known. Psychologically, emotion regulation (ER) style is likely to influence the individual's specific behavioral response when affronting stress. This study tested whether adolescents with distinct ER styles would show different patterns of linear and nonlinear cardiac changes under stressful conditions. We predicted less autonomic flexibility for adolescents with a highly negative emotional regulation (HNER) style (n = 10) than for those adolescents with a highly positive emotional regulation (HPER) style (n=10). Further, associations between linear and nonlinear measures during each condition were examined for each group. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that HR and HRV changed according to the predicted pattern. Higuchi...

International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 2016

Introducción/Objetivo: Se ha asociado la existencia de sintomatología ansiosa con algunas propied... more Introducción/Objetivo: Se ha asociado la existencia de sintomatología ansiosa con algunas propiedades lineales de la variabilidad cardiaca (VC), sin prestar demasiada atención a propiedades más esenciales del sistema cardiaco, como su naturaleza fractal. En este trabajo se pretendía evaluar si medidas de fractalidad (exponentes alométricos) y medi - das de VC (potencia en la banda de altas frecuencias, AF) permitían distinguir entre 24 adolescentes con alta sintomatología ansiosa y 26 adolescentes con baja. Además, se perseguía explorar las asociaciones de estas medidas con sensibilidad al castigo (SC), un factor de riesgo para ansiedad. Método: Se tomó la actividad cardiaca de los adolescen - tes en contexto ecológico y se calcularon dichas medidas sobre registros de 90 minutos. Resultados: Se encontraron exponentes alométricos significativamente mayores para los adolescentes con alta ansiedad ( p < 0,05), sin observarse diferencias significativas en potencia de AF ( p = 0,057)....

Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback

The present study aimed to provide further evidence on the usefulness of non-linear cardiac measu... more The present study aimed to provide further evidence on the usefulness of non-linear cardiac measures when examining the output of the cardiac system. Scale-invariant self-similarity and entropy, in addition to heart rate variability (HRV) given by time- and frequency-domain measures were calculated in a sample of N = 55 healthy adolescents (Mage = 14.122, SDage = 0.698) during 10-min positive (non-stressful) and negative (stressful) interactions with their mothers. We also explored sex influence in adolescents' cardiac output using both HRV measures and non-linear cardiac measures. Repeated measures MANOVA revealed a marginal within-group effect for HRV measures, F(3,51) = 2.438, p = 0.075, η2p = 0.125), and a significant within-group effect for non-linear cardiac measures, F(6, 48) = 3.296, p = 0.009, η2p = 0.292, showing a significant decrement in adolescents' cardiac complexity during the negative interaction. No significant effect for sex was found in either non-linear cardiac measures or HRV measures, but results suggest lower cardiac scaling in females than in males. These findings suggest a real-time scale predominance in heart rate output when adolescents face an aversive situation and support the importance of non-linear cardiac measures to gain insight into the cardiac system and its regulatory mechanisms. Further research is needed to examine sex-differences in cardiac complexity during aversive situations.

Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, 2018

The risk of suffering anxiety disorders is associated with sustained subthreshold symptoms of anx... more The risk of suffering anxiety disorders is associated with sustained subthreshold symptoms of anxiety. This study evaluated the stability of anxiety scores (high, moderate or low) across a six-month period in early adolescents (N = 95). The associations between sustained anxiety, vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), sympathetic activity, and heart rate fractal dynamics in everyday life conditions were analyzed. The anxiety scores from 71.50% of participants remained at the same level. The linear correlations between anxiety and cardiac measures were weak but a group-based approach revealed that the fractal dimension (FD) from stable-low anxiety participants was higher than the FD from participants with stable-moderate anxiety scores but not higher than the FD from the stable-high anxiety group. The short-term correlations' exponent a1 from the stable-high anxiety group was higher than the a1 from the stable-moderate anxiety group but not higher than the exponent from...

Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, 2017

Many physiological systems are multistable, i.e. they operate at different time scales under an a... more Many physiological systems are multistable, i.e. they operate at different time scales under an allometric control process. The multistability of affective fluctuations has been clearly illustrated in a sample of adults, but little is known about their dynamics in adolescents. The main aim of this study was to determine whether affective fluctuations in adolescents show multistability and to explore their relationship with anxiety symptomatology and temperamental factors. Twenty-five early adolescents self-reported their daily mood, anxiety and worry levels twice a day over a 100-day period. The time series were analysed using the allometric aggregation method to obtain the scaling exponent h. Almost all the (Hurst) scaling exponents were 0.5 > h > 1. The worry exponents were related to temperament factors, whereas the anxiety exponents were related to social phobia symptoms. The results substantiate that affective fluctuations in adolescents are multistable, lending support t...

Child Psychiatry & Human Development

This study explored the association between temperament—i.e., positive affect (PA) and negative a... more This study explored the association between temperament—i.e., positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA)—and emotion regulation (ER), and what momentary factors influence the selection of rumination or reappraisal during adolescents’ daily life. The type of social situation in which negative events occurred, the self-rated degrees of discomfort, the types of predominant emotions experienced, and the use of reappraisal and rumination were assessed at 24 different times with an ecological momentary assessment approach given to 71 adolescents. PA, NA, and ER style were evaluated using self-reports. Bivariate Pearson correlations analysis revealed that NA and negative ER style correlated positively with the rumination use whereas PA correlated negatively with the rumination use. Negative ER style moderated the relationship between NA and the frequency with which rumination was used. The moderated function of positive ER style could not be tested due to its lack of association with th...

Título: La Escala de Control Intencional para adultos: propiedades psicométricas de la versión ca... more Título: La Escala de Control Intencional para adultos: propiedades psicométricas de la versión catalana y sus relaciones con la regulación emocional cognitiva. Resumen: Los objetivos del estudio fueron (a) examinar las propiedades

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, 2020

This paper aimed to (a) validate a novel technique that quantifies the length of the trajectories... more This paper aimed to (a) validate a novel technique that quantifies the length of the trajectories the cardiac system follows within a two-dimensional state-space, and (b) test its usefulness to better understand how cognitive emotion regulation (CER) style is associated with cardiac output. A positive CER style was assessed in a sample of healthy adolescents (n = 57), and mean and total distances, in addition to heart rate variability (HRV) measures and cardiac entropy (SampEn), were calculated during a conflict discussion with the adolescents' mothers. Associations between distances and HRV measures in time and frequency-domains and SampEn were examined to better understand the physiological meaning of distances; further, whether a positive CER style would predict distances, HRV, and SampEn. Correlation analysis revealed that associations of distances with time-domain HRV measures were stronger than associations with frequency-domain HRV measures, while correlations between dis...

En esta trabajo se analizan las propiedades psicometricas de una version catalana de la Escala de... more En esta trabajo se analizan las propiedades psicometricas de una version catalana de la Escala de Ansiedad en Ninos/-as de Spence (Spance Children's Anxiety Scale, SCAS) (Spence, 1998), en una muestra de 692 ninos y jovenes de ensenanza primaria y secundaria obligatoria. La version catalana de la SCAS presenta una fiabilidad y consistencia interna elevada, una buena validez convergente y discriminante, semejantes a los resultados de la version inglesa. En cuanto a la estructura factorial se obtienen 6 factores a partir del analisis de componentes principales, ligeramente distintos a los informados en los trabajos del grupo de Spenca. Se discute la semejanza de nuestros resultados con los encontrados en la investigacion previa sobre la SCAS.

Physiological systems need to be flexible in order to adapt to a changing environment. Negative e... more Physiological systems need to be flexible in order to adapt to a changing environment. Negative events, however, induce flexibility reductions that seem necessary for coping purposes. To date, studies have measured linear variability and entropy in heart output, but none have examined the scaling properties of the cardiac system when individuals deal with stressful everyday events. This study was aimed at testing the hypothesis that the complexity of the cardiac dynamics is diminished when individuals face negative events in real life. Cardiac variability (linear) and complexity (nonlinear), as well as discomfort and effectiveness of event-related emotion regulation (EER) were ecologically examined in N = 65 adolescents (Mage = 14.80 years; SDage = 0.86; 55.38% girls). Repeated Measures MANOVAs revealed higher heart rate (HR) and lower cardiac complexity (higher long-term scaling exponent, p = .029; lower Fractal Dimension FD, p = .030; and lower Sample Entropy, p = .001) during EER...

Journal of Affective Disorders

Background: Anxiety disorders frequently have an onset during adolescence, which when left untrea... more Background: Anxiety disorders frequently have an onset during adolescence, which when left untreated could lead to a chronic course and outcome. This study aimed to examine the way in which a cognitive behaviour therapy-based programme (Super Skills for Lifeadolescent version; SSL-A) could change the course of anxiety symptoms through adolescent's behavioural performance and cardiac function. Method: Sixty-one adolescents at risk of developing an anxiety disorder (45.30% boys; M = 13.76 years, SD = 0.32) were randomly assigned to either the intervention (IG), placebo (PG), or waitlist group (WG). Adolescents in the IG participated in SSL-A over an 8-week period. Adolescents in the PG participated in an 8-session school-work programme. Adolescents in the WG did not receive any intervention. Anxiety symptoms were assessed every six months, twice before intervention, as well as at postand six months after the intervention. Participants in the IG additionally underwent a stressful task to assess behavioural performance and cardiac adjustment. Results: Adolescents in the IG significantly reported lower levels of social phobia and generalised anxiety symptoms at the follow-up assessment compared to the adolescents in the PG and the WG. They also showed a significant improvement in vocal quality and lower discomfort during a stressful task at post-intervention, and showed attenuated cardiac recovery indexes, in terms of sample entropy. Limitations: The study has a small sample size. Conclusion: SSL-A changed natural course of anxiety symptoms, as shown by a significant reduction in social phobia and generalised anxiety symptoms, and a significant improvement in behaviour and physiological (cardiac) function during a stressful situation.

Psychology in the Schools

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Adolescence is a vulnerable period for depressive and anxious symptom development, and emotion re... more Adolescence is a vulnerable period for depressive and anxious symptom development, and emotion regulation (ER) may be one mechanism linking temperament—i.e., positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA)—with such symptomatology. Rumination is a common ER strategy that is traditionally assessed using self-reported questionnaires, but it would also be interesting to examine it with an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) approach. Sixty-five adolescents (Mage = 14.69; SDage = 0.82; range = 14–17 years old; 53.80% girls) completed self-report measures of temperament, ER style, depression and anxiety, and underwent an EMA to investigate rumination use. Results revealed that negative ER style and rumination use mediated the relationship between NA and depression, while only rumination use mediated the relationship between PA and depression. Moreover, NA contributed to increase anxiety, but negative ER style did not significantly mediate this relationship. Rumination use also had no eff...

Developmental Psychobiology

Child Psychiatry & Human Development

Anxiety, Stress, & Coping

Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, Jul 1, 2017

Many physiological systems are multistable, i.e. they operate at different time scales under an a... more Many physiological systems are multistable, i.e. they operate at different time scales under an allometric control process. The multistability of affective fluctuations has been clearly illustrated in a sample of adults, but little is known about their dynamics in adolescents. The main aim of this study was to determine whether affective fluctuations in adolescents show multistability and to explore their relationship with anxiety symptomatology and temperamental factors. Twenty-five early adolescents self-reported their daily mood, anxiety and worry levels twice a day over a 100-day period. The time series were analysed using the allometric aggregation method to obtain the scaling exponent h. Almost all the (Hurst) scaling exponents were 0.5 > h > 1. The worry exponents were related to temperament factors, whereas the anxiety exponents were related to social phobia symptoms. The results substantiate that affective fluctuations in adolescents are multistable, lending support t...