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. 2018 Dec;54(12):2240-2247.
doi: 10.1037/dev0000588. Epub 2018 Oct 18.

Recognition of facial emotions of varying intensities by three-year-olds

Laurie Bayet  1 , Hannah F Behrendt  1 , Julia K Cataldo  1 , Alissa Westerlund  1 , Charles A Nelson  1
Affiliations

Recognition of facial emotions of varying intensities by three-year-olds

Laurie Bayet et al. Dev Psychol. 2018 Dec.

Abstract

Early facial emotion recognition is hypothesized to be critical to later social functioning. However, relatively little is known about the typical intensity thresholds for recognizing facial emotions in preschoolers, between 2 and 4 years of age. This study employed a behavioral sorting task to examine the recognition of happy, fearful, and angry expressions of varying intensity in a large sample of 3-year-old children (N = 208). Thresholds were similar for all expressions; accuracy, however, was significantly lower for fear. Fear and anger expressions above threshold were significantly more confused with one another than with other expressions. In contrast, neutral faces were significantly more often interpreted as happy than as angry or fearful. These results provide a comparison point for future studies of early facial emotion recognition in typical and atypical populations of children in this age group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Example stimuli.
Adapted with permission from: Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J., Leon, A.C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T.A., Marcus, D.J., Westerlund, A., Casey, B.J., Nelson, C.A. (2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions: judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 168(3):242-9
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Emotion sorting behavior at three years of age.
A. Behavioral accuracy. B. Response rates to neutral faces. *** p < .001; NS p > .05. C. Fitted psychometric curves. D. Sensitivity. E. Conservative bias. F. Average confusion matrix.
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