Table 3.

Studies Examining Parents’ Frontal Alpha Asymmetry and Specific Parenting-related Constructs.

Authors	N	Task Stimuli	Stimuli length in seconds	Number of trials	Measure of parenting behavior	Results
Diego et al., 2001	60	n/a (EEG during resting baseline only)	-	-	Withdrawn and intrusive parenting behaviors (observed during parent-child interaction)	Mothers who exhibited withdrawn behavior showed significantly greater right FAA than mothers who exhibited intrusive parenting behavior.
Field et al., 2003	140	n/a (EEG during resting baseline only)			Contingent, withdrawn, and intrusive parenting behaviors (observed during parent-child interaction)	Mothers who were depressed but who exhibited positive parenting had greater right FAA than non-depressed mothers, but less right FAA than depressed mothers who were withdrawn during parent-infant interaction.
Chen et al., 2015	121	n/a (EEG during resting baseline only)	-	-	Harsh parenting (self-report questionnaire)	No association between parental asymmetry and parenting behavior.
Wang et al., 2018	39	n/a (EEG during resting baseline only)	-	-	Unavailable and controlling parental behaviors (observed during parent-child interaction)	No association between parental asymmetry and parenting behavior.
Killeen & Teti, 2012	26	Video clips of own infant neutral, distress, joy	10	36	Sensitivity, nonintrusiveness, and structuring (observed during parent-child interaction)	Shift to right FAA in response to infant distress was associated with parenting sensitivity and structuring.
Groh et al., 2014	108	Audio recording of infant crying	180	1	Maternal secure base script knowledge (self-report questionnaire)	Secure base script knowledge associated with shift to right FAA in response to infant cry.
Martin et al., 2018	73	Audio recording of infant crying	180	1	Family of origin experience of having been parented sensitively (observed during parent-child interaction when mother herself was a child)	Family of origin sensitive parenting associated with shift to left FAA in response to infant cry.
Atzaba- Poria et al., 2017	34	Mother-child interaction task	305.98*	1	Maternal & child negative affect & behavior during (observed during the parent-child task in which EEG was also recorded)	Mothers’ right FAA was associated with own negativity and child negativity (but only child negativity was significant when both were included in the same model)

^*Total task length varied per dyad; 305.98 second was sample average.