This study examined cognitive processes of children exposed to two types of
family hostility: parents' interpartner aggression and/or maternal child a
buse potential, Forty-nine mother-child dyads from a community sample parti
cipated. Mothers completed the Domestic Conflict Inventory and the Child Ab
use Potential Inventory, while children completed cognitive tasks before an
d after listening to audiotaped vignettes of marital conflict. Study findin
gs revealed that, following, presentation of conflict vignettes, children e
xposed to high versus low levels of family hostility demonstrated fewer int
rusion errors on the verbal learning task and showed improved performance o
n the verbal attention task, yet also performed more poorly on a measure of
short delay verbal recall. Discussion addresses the ways in which specific
types of cognitive processes are differentially affected by exposure to fa
mily hostility.