Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Feb;110(2):242-7.
doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2008.10.010. Epub 2008 Dec 6.

Development of perceptual expertise in emotion recognition

Seth D Pollak  1 , Michael Messner, Doris J Kistler, Jeffrey F Cohn
Affiliations

Development of perceptual expertise in emotion recognition

Seth D Pollak et al. Cognition. 2009 Feb.

Abstract

How do children's early social experiences influence their perception of emotion-specific information communicated by the face? To examine this question, we tested a group of abused children who had been exposed to extremely high levels of parental anger expression and physical threat. Children were presented with arrays of stimuli that depicted the unfolding of facial expressions, from neutrality to peak emotions. The abused children accurately recognized anger early in the formation of the facial expression, when few physiological cues were available. The speed of children's recognition was associated with the degree of anger/hostility reported by the child's parent. These data highlight the ways in which perceptual learning can shape the timing of emotion perception.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Examples from the stimulus array for (top to bottom) models creating scared, sad, happy, surprised, and angry facial expressions. Note to Reviewers: The full stimulus set and both child and adult ratings of each exemplar can be made available during the review process and/or posted as on-line supplementary material.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Recognition functions of abused and control children for facial displays as a function of percent of peak emotional expression.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bornstein MH, Arterberry ME. Recognition, discrimination and categorization of smiling by 5-month-old infants. Developmental Science. 2003;6:585–599.
    1. Carey S, Diamond R. Are faces perceived as configurations more by adults than by children? Visual Cognition. 1994;1:253–174.
    1. Diamond R, Carey S. Why faces are and are not special: An effect of expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 1986;115:107–117. - PubMed
    1. Dolan RJ, Fink GR, Rolls E, Booth M, Holmes A, Frackowiak RSJ, Friston KJ. How the brain learns to see objects and faces in an impoverished context. Nature. 1997;389:596–599. - PubMed
    1. Ekman P. The directed facial action technique. In: Coan JA, Allen JB, editors. The handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment, Oxford University Press Series in Affective Science. New York, NY: Oxford University; In press.

LinkOut - more resources