Towards a cognitive science of social inequality: Children’s attention-related ERPs and salivary 20 vary with their socioeconomic status

We investigated the relationships between socioeconomic status (SES) and the neural correlates of selective attention by comparing event-related potentials (ERPs) in low- and high-SES preadolescents during an auditory selective attention task. Salivary cortisol levels were also determined before and after the task. ERP difference waveforms between attended and unattended auditory stimuli (Nd, difference negativity) were significant in the high-SES group but not in the low-SES group. However, post-ERP cortisol levels were elevated only for low-SES children and there were no differences between the groups in reaction times and accuracy. We conclude that low-SES children have reduced attentional selectivity, but at the cost of heightened executive control which allows them to inhibit responding to attended distracters and perform the task as well as high-SES children. Socioeconomic status reflects living conditions associated with differences or “inequalities ” in a series of outcomes during different periods of the life-course (e.g., Graham & Power, 2004). In the last 30 years, research has established that family income and other indicators of socioeconomic status of origin (SES), such as parental occupation or education, are highly associated with cognitive and achievement outcomes in childhood (review in Bradley &amp