Preschool children's decoding of facial emotions

Abstract

This study examined preschool children's ability to decode facial emotions. Subjects comprised 32 preschoolers (16 3 1/2-year-olds, 16 5-year-olds), with equal numbers of boys and girls, enrolled in a preschool. Children heard a brief story describing a boy's emotion and were shown three photographs of a boy, each displaying a different emotion (one target emotion and two distractor or nontarget emotions). Children were asked to choose the one photograph that corresponded to the boy's emotion in the story. As predicted, the ability to decode facial emotions improved with age for both boys and girls. Girls were significantly better than boys at identifying emotions; in fact, 3 1/2-year-old girls were as accurate as 5-year-old boys. Age and gender effects, as well as topics for future investigation, are discussed.