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
. 2014 Feb 1;23(1):80-99.
doi: 10.1111/sode.12038.

How Mood and Task Complexity Affect Children's Recognition of Others' Emotions

Andrew J Cummings  1 , Jennifer L Rennels  1
Affiliations

How Mood and Task Complexity Affect Children's Recognition of Others' Emotions

Andrew J Cummings et al. Soc Dev. .

Abstract

Previous studies examined how mood affects children's accuracy in matching emotional expressions and labels (label-based tasks). This study was the first to assess how induced mood (positive, neutral, or negative) influenced 5- to 8-year-olds' accuracy and reaction time using both context-based tasks, which required inferring a character's emotion from a vignette, and label-based tasks. Both tasks required choosing one of four facial expressions to respond. Children responded more accurately to label-based questions relative to context-based questions at 5 to 7 years of age, but showed no differences at 8 years of age, and when the emotional expression being identified was happiness, sadness, or surprise, but not disgust. For the context-based questions, children were more accurate at inferring sad and disgusted emotions compared to happy and surprised emotions. Induced positive mood facilitated 5-year-olds' processing (decreased reaction time) in both tasks compared to induced negative and neutral moods. Results demonstrate how task type and children's mood influence children's emotion processing at different ages.

Keywords: children; emotion recognition; mood; social information processing.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mean accuracy rates and standard deviation for children's emotion recognition accuracy based on age and question type.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean accuracy rates and standard deviation for children's emotion recognition based on question type and emotional expression.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean reaction times and standard deviation for children's emotion recognition based on children's mood condition and age.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mean reaction times and standard deviation for children's emotion recognition based on question type and emotional expression.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ashby F, Isen AM, Turken AU. A neuropsychological theory of positive affect and its influence on cognition. Psychological Review. 1999;106(3):529–550. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.3.529. - PubMed
    1. Baas M, De Dreu CW, Nijstad BA. A meta-analysis of 25 years of mood-creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus?. Psychological Bulletin. 2008;134(6):779–806. doi:10.1037/a0012815. - PubMed
    1. Batty M, Taylor M. The development of emotional face processing during childhood. Developmental Science. 2006;9(2):207–220. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00480.x. - PubMed
    1. Baumann N, Kuhl J. Positive affect and flexibility: overcoming the precedence of global over local processing of visual information. Motivation and Emotion. 2005;29(2):123–134. doi:10.1007/s11031-005-7957-1.
    1. Bennett D, Bendersky M, Lewis M. Antecedents of emotion knowledge: Predictors of individual differences in young children. Cognition and Emotion. 2005;19(3):375–396. doi:10.1080/02699930441000201. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources