1
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Wang Y, Luo Q, Zhang Y, Zhao K. Synchrony or asynchrony: development of facial expression recognition from childhood to adolescence based on large-scale evidence. Front Psychol 2024; 15:1379652. [PMID: 38725946 PMCID: PMC11079229 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1379652] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2024] [Accepted: 04/09/2024] [Indexed: 05/12/2024] Open
Abstract
The development of facial expression recognition ability in children is crucial for their emotional cognition and social interactions. In this study, 510 children aged between 6 and 15 participated in a two forced-choice task of facial expression recognition. The findings supported that recognition of the six basic facial expressions reached a relatively stable mature level around 8-9 years old. Additionally, model fitting results indicated that children showed the most significant improvement in recognizing expressions of disgust, closely followed by fear. Conversely, recognition of expressions of happiness and sadness showed slower improvement across different age groups. Regarding gender differences, girls exhibited a more pronounced advantage. Further model fitting revealed that boys showed more pronounced improvements in recognizing expressions of disgust, fear, and anger, while girls showed more pronounced improvements in recognizing expressions of surprise, sadness, and happiness. These clear findings suggested the synchronous developmental trajectory of facial expression recognition from childhood to adolescence, likely influenced by socialization processes and interactions related to brain maturation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yihan Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Qian Luo
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Yuanmeng Zhang
- College of Letters and Science, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States
| | - Ke Zhao
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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2
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Cooper H, Jennings BJ, Kumari V, Willard AK, Bennetts RJ. The association between childhood trauma and emotion recognition is reduced or eliminated when controlling for alexithymia and psychopathy traits. Sci Rep 2024; 14:3413. [PMID: 38341493 PMCID: PMC10858958 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-53421-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2023] [Accepted: 01/31/2024] [Indexed: 02/12/2024] Open
Abstract
Emotion recognition shows large inter-individual variability, and is substantially affected by childhood trauma as well as modality, emotion portrayed, and intensity. While research suggests childhood trauma influences emotion recognition, it is unclear whether this effect is consistent when controlling for interrelated individual differences. Further, the universality of the effects has not been explored, most studies have not examined differing modalities or intensities. This study examined childhood trauma's association with accuracy, when controlling for alexithymia and psychopathy traits, and if this varied across modality, emotion portrayed, and intensity. An adult sample (N = 122) completed childhood trauma, alexithymia, and psychopathy questionnaires and three emotion tasks: faces, voices, audio-visual. When investigating childhood trauma alone, there was a significant association with poorer accuracy when exploring modality, emotion portrayed, and intensity. When controlling for alexithymia and psychopathy, childhood trauma remained significant when exploring emotion portrayed, however, it was no longer significant when exploring modality and intensity. In fact, alexithymia was significant when exploring intensity. The effect sizes overall were small. Our findings suggest the importance of controlling for interrelated individual differences. Future research should explore more sensitive measures of emotion recognition, such as intensity ratings and sensitivity to intensity, to see if these follow accuracy findings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Holly Cooper
- Division of Psychology, College of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK.
| | - Ben J Jennings
- Division of Psychology, College of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK
| | - Veena Kumari
- Division of Psychology, College of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK
| | - Aiyana K Willard
- Division of Psychology, College of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK
| | - Rachel J Bennetts
- Division of Psychology, College of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK.
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3
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Ceccarini F, Colpizzi I, Caudek C. Age-dependent changes in the anger superiority effect: Evidence from a visual search task. Psychon Bull Rev 2024:10.3758/s13423-023-02401-3. [PMID: 38238561 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02401-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/03/2023] [Indexed: 04/16/2024]
Abstract
The perception of threatening facial expressions is a critical skill necessary for detecting the emotional states of others and responding appropriately. The anger superiority effect hypothesis suggests that individuals are better at processing and identifying angry faces compared with other nonthreatening facial expressions. In adults, the anger superiority effect is present even after controlling for the bottom-up visual saliency, and when ecologically valid stimuli are used. However, it is as yet unclear whether this effect is present in children. To fill this gap, we tested the anger superiority effect in children ages 6-14 years in a visual search task by using emotional dynamic stimuli and equating the visual salience of target and distractors. The results suggest that in childhood, the angry superiority effect consists of improved accuracy in detecting angry faces, while in adolescence, the ability to discriminate angry faces undergoes further development, enabling faster and more accurate threat detection.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ilaria Colpizzi
- Health Sciences Department, Università Degli Studi Di Firenze, Florence, Italy
| | - Corrado Caudek
- NEUROFARBA Department, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy.
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4
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Schneider JN, Matyjek M, Weigand A, Dziobek I, Brick TR. Subjective and objective difficulty of emotional facial expression perception from dynamic stimuli. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0269156. [PMID: 35709093 PMCID: PMC9202844 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0269156] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2021] [Accepted: 05/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
This study aimed to discover predictors of subjective and objective difficulty in emotion perception from dynamic facial expressions. We used a multidimensional emotion perception framework, in which observers rated the perceived emotion along a number of dimensions instead of choosing from traditionally-used discrete categories of emotions. Data were collected online from 441 participants who rated facial expression stimuli in a novel paradigm designed to separately measure subjective (self-reported) and objective (deviation from the population consensus) difficulty. We targeted person-specific (sex and age of observers and actors) and stimulus-specific (valence and arousal values) predictors of those difficulty scores. Our findings suggest that increasing age of actors makes emotion perception more difficult for observers, and that perception difficulty is underestimated by men in comparison to women, and by younger and older adults in comparison to middle-aged adults. The results also yielded an increase in the objective difficulty measure for female observers and female actors. Stimulus-specific factors–valence and arousal–exhibited quadratic relationships with subjective and objective difficulties: Very positive and very negative stimuli were linked to reduced subjective and objective difficulty, whereas stimuli of very low and high arousal were linked to decreased subjective but increased objective difficulty. Exploratory analyses revealed low relevance of person-specific variables for the prediction of difficulty but highlighted the importance of valence in emotion perception, in line with functional accounts of emotions. Our findings highlight the need to complement traditional emotion recognition paradigms with novel designs, like the one presented here, to grasp the “big picture” of human emotion perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan N. Schneider
- Institut für Informatik und Computational Science, Universität Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
- Department of Psychology, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- * E-mail: (JNS); (MM)
| | - Magdalena Matyjek
- Department of Psychology, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- * E-mail: (JNS); (MM)
| | - Anne Weigand
- Department of Psychology, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Isabel Dziobek
- Department of Psychology, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Timothy R. Brick
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies and Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, United States of America
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5
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Rochat MJ. Sex and gender differences in the development of empathy. J Neurosci Res 2022; 101:718-729. [PMID: 35043464 DOI: 10.1002/jnr.25009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/03/2020] [Revised: 12/22/2021] [Accepted: 12/28/2021] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
The topic of typical sex and gender difference in empathy is examined in both a developmental and neuroscientific perspective. Empathy is construed as a multi-layered phenomenon with various degrees of complexity unfolding in ontogeny. The different components of empathy (i.e., affective, cognitive, and prosocial motivation) will be discussed as they interact and are expressed behaviorally. Significant sex/gender differences in empathy are discussed in relation to putative bottom-up or top-down processes underlying empathetic responses. The early onset and the pervasive presence of such sex/gender differences throughout the lifespan are further discussed in light of social and neurobiological modeling factors, including early socialization, brain's structural/functional variances, as well as genetics and hormonal factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Magali Jane Rochat
- Functional and Molecular Neuroimaging Unit, IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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6
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Stella FN, Ramírez VA, Ruetti E. Individual Differences in Emotional Appraisal during Development: Analysis of the Role of Age, Gender, and Appraisal Accuracy. The Journal of Genetic Psychology 2021; 183:9-22. [PMID: 34766875 DOI: 10.1080/00221325.2021.1997896] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Emotional appraisal is the process by which different responses are generated from subjective assessments of different stimuli. Children and adults can react differently to the same stimulus. Emotional appraisal is crucial to define emotional processing and its consequent response rather than the properties of the stimulus itself. Age and gender modulate emotional appraisal during development. This study analyzed emotional appraisal in children aged 4 to 8-years-old. The children's emotional appraisal responses and the appraisal accuracy to images with positive, negative, and neutral valence be compared between the different age groups, and according to the gender of the participants. About the appraisal accuracy, the comparisons indicated significant differences for positive and negative images according to the age of the participants, with no differences in the appraisal accuracy of neutral images. Differences in appraisal accuracy for negative images were observed between the 4-years-old group compared to the 7- and 8-years-old group, as well as in 5-years-old participants compared to 7-years-old. Significant differences were found for the positive and negative images between girls and boys, but no differences were found for neutral images. Girls had more appraisals accuracy for positive and negative images. This work highlights the importance of analyzing individual differences associated with emotional processing at different stages of development. This interrogates research findings in which emotional appraisal is carried out considering the valence assigned by adults and highlights the need for a methodological approach that includes individual differences in the appraisal of stimuli used during development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fernando Nicolás Stella
- Applied Neurobiology Unit, UNA, CEMIC-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.,Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Verónica Adriana Ramírez
- Applied Neurobiology Unit, UNA, CEMIC-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.,Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Eliana Ruetti
- Applied Neurobiology Unit, UNA, CEMIC-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.,Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
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7
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Milojevich HM, Lindquist KA, Sheridan MA. Adversity and Emotional Functioning. AFFECTIVE SCIENCE 2021; 2:324-344. [PMID: 36059901 PMCID: PMC9382958 DOI: 10.1007/s42761-021-00054-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2021] [Accepted: 06/03/2021] [Indexed: 04/15/2023]
Abstract
Exposure to early adversity has been linked to variations in emotional functioning. To date, however, the precise nature of these variations has been difficult to pinpoint given widespread differences in the ways in which aspects of emotional functioning are defined and measured. Here, more consistent with models of emotional functioning in typically developing populations (e.g., Halberstadt et al., 2001), we propose defining emotional functioning as consisting of distinct domains of emotion expression, perception, knowledge, reactivity, and regulation. We argue that this framework is useful for guiding hypothesis generation about the specific impact of early adversity on children's emotional functioning. We operationalize the construct of emotional functioning, highlight what is currently known about the association between adversity exposure and each domain of emotional functioning, propose potential mechanisms for these associations, and set the stage for future research examining the development of emotional functioning in the context of early adversity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Helen M. Milojevich
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 1000 NE 13th Street, Nicholson Tower Suite 4976, OK 73104 Oklahoma City, USA
| | - Kristen A. Lindquist
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC USA
| | - Margaret A. Sheridan
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC USA
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8
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Wu L, Yang X, Zhang K, Wang X, Yang B. Impairment of eye emotion discrimination in benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes: A neuropsychological study. Brain Behav 2021; 11:e02154. [PMID: 33942564 PMCID: PMC8213938 DOI: 10.1002/brb3.2154] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2020] [Revised: 03/15/2021] [Accepted: 04/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE To explore the characteristics of the impairment of eye emotional recognition and related clinical factors in children with benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECT). METHODS The Eye Basic Emotion Discrimination Task and Eye Complex Emotion Discrimination Task were used to study emotion discrimination in 33 recently diagnosed BECT patients and 33 BECT patients after complete remission compared to respective age- and gender-matched comparison participants. RESULTS The scores for discrimination of sadness, fear, and disgust were significantly lower in the newly diagnosed BECT group than in the comparison group (p = .004, p = .019, and p = .044, respectively), while scores for recognizing happiness, anger, and surprise were not significantly different between the two groups (p = .248, p = .586, and p = .540, respectively). Our analysis revealed that the BECT onset age influences the scores for recognition of sadness, fear, and disgust (OR = 1.795, 95% CI: 1.097 to 2.936, p = .020; OR=1.846, 95% CI: 1.124 to 3.034, p = .016; OR = 1.851, 95% CI: 1.131-3.029, p = .014). After remission, the scores for discrimination of happiness, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and surprise of the BECT group were not significantly different from the comparison group (p = .588, p = .765, p = .752, p = .984, p = .328, and p = .339, respectively). CONCLUSIONS In our study, newly diagnosed BECT patients exhibited emotion discrimination dysfunction, mainly related to sadness, fear, and disgust, and this dysfunction was more severe the younger the age of onset was. However, after BECT remission, the ability to discriminate emotions returned to normal.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lulu Wu
- Department of Neurology, Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Xinyu Yang
- Department of Neurology, Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Kaili Zhang
- Department of Neurology, Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Xiaocui Wang
- Department of Neurology, Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Bin Yang
- Department of Neurology, Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital, Hefei, China
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9
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Kawahara M, Sauter DA, Tanaka A. Culture shapes emotion perception from faces and voices: changes over development. Cogn Emot 2021; 35:1175-1186. [PMID: 34000966 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2021.1922361] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
The perception of multisensory emotion cues is affected by culture. For example, East Asians rely more on vocal, as compared to facial, affective cues compared to Westerners. However, it is unknown whether these cultural differences exist in childhood, and if not, which processing style is exhibited in children. The present study tested East Asian and Western children, as well as adults from both cultural backgrounds, to probe cross-cultural similarities and differences at different ages, and to establish the weighting of each modality at different ages. Participants were simultaneously shown a face and a voice expressing either congruent or incongruent emotions, and were asked to judge whether the person was happy or angry. Replicating previous research, East Asian adults relied more on vocal cues than did Western adults. Young children from both cultural groups, however, behaved like Western adults, relying primarily on visual information. The proportion of responses based on vocal cues increased with age in East Asian, but not Western, participants. These results suggest that culture is an important factor in developmental changes in the perception of facial and vocal affective information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Misako Kawahara
- Department of Psychology, Tokyo Woman's Christian University, Tokyo, Japan.,Kojimachi Business Center Building, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Disa A Sauter
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Akihiro Tanaka
- Department of Psychology, Tokyo Woman's Christian University, Tokyo, Japan
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10
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Ross P, Atkins B, Allison L, Simpson H, Duffell C, Williams M, Ermolina O. Children cannot ignore what they hear: Incongruent emotional information leads to an auditory dominance in children. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 204:105068. [PMID: 33434707 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105068] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2020] [Revised: 11/19/2020] [Accepted: 12/07/2020] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
Effective emotion recognition is imperative to successfully navigating social situations. Research suggests differing developmental trajectories for the recognition of bodily and vocal emotion, but emotions are usually studied in isolation and rarely considered as multimodal stimuli in the literature. When adults are presented with basic multimodal sensory stimuli, the Colavita effect suggests that they have a visual dominance, whereas more recent research finds that an auditory sensory dominance may be present in children under 8 years of age. However, it is not currently known whether this phenomenon holds for more complex multimodal social stimuli. Here we presented children and adults with multimodal social stimuli consisting of emotional bodies and voices, asking them to recognize the emotion in one modality while ignoring the other. We found that adults can perform this task with no detrimental effects on performance regardless of whether the ignored emotion was congruent or not. However, children find it extremely challenging to recognize bodily emotion while trying to ignore incongruent vocal emotional information. In several instances, they performed below chance level, indicating that the auditory modality actively informs their choice of bodily emotion. Therefore, this is the first evidence, to our knowledge, of an auditory dominance in children when presented with emotionally meaningful stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paddy Ross
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
| | - Beth Atkins
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
| | - Laura Allison
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
| | - Holly Simpson
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
| | | | - Matthew Williams
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK; Department of Psychology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK
| | - Olga Ermolina
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
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11
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Garcia SE, Tully EC. Children's recognition of happy, sad, and angry facial expressions across emotive intensities. J Exp Child Psychol 2020; 197:104881. [PMID: 32559635 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2019] [Revised: 04/25/2020] [Accepted: 04/27/2020] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Sharing emotional experiences is a key task that requires accurate recognition of peers' emotions during middle childhood. Existing research suggests that children are proficient at discerning emotion from facial expressions during middle childhood, but this research has focused on recognition of adults' intense emotional expressions. In this study, facial emotion recognition for children's happy, sad, and angry expressions across low, medium, and high intensities was measured in a sample of 7- to 10-year-old children (N = 80; 53% female) to quantify overall accurate recognition as well as inaccuracies, including identifying an emotion as present when it is not (false alarms) and failing to identify an emotion when present (miss rate). Children's recognition accuracy for low-threshold happiness, sadness, and anger was quite poor but improved in a cubic fashion as expression intensity increased, with dramatic improvements across medium-intensity expressions, and little further improvement across high-intensity expressions. A positivity bias was evident; children were more accurate at recognizing happiness than at recognizing sadness and anger, rarely failed to identify happiness when present, and tended to mislabel expressions as happy rather than as angry or sad. Children were generally better at recognizing anger compared with sadness but were more accurate at recognizing subtle sadness compared with anger, which appeared to be due to children missing subtle anger when present. The findings are discussed with regard to the functionality of others' happiness for signaling positive socializing opportunities, anger for signaling threatening interactions, and sadness for prompting prosocial action and with regard to how children's facial emotion recognition may affect general socioemotional development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah E Garcia
- Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA.
| | - Erin C Tully
- Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30302, USA
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12
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Lan X, Moscardino U. Sensitivity to facial emotional expressions and peer relationship problems in Chinese rural‐to‐urban migrant early adolescents: An exploratory study. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/sode.12456] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoyu Lan
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization University of Padova Padova Italy
| | - Ughetta Moscardino
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization University of Padova Padova Italy
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13
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Ruetti E, Segretin MS, Ramírez VA, Lipina SJ. Role of Emotional Appraisal in Episodic Memory in a Sample of Argentinean Preschoolers. Front Psychol 2019; 10:2556. [PMID: 31866886 PMCID: PMC6906165 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02556] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2018] [Accepted: 10/29/2019] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Emotional processing and episodic memory are closely related throughout childhood development. With respect to emotional episodic memory, available evidence shows that the consolidation of information is accompanied by an arousal that generates longer duration and persistence of the memory representations. In the case of early stages of development (i.e., first 5 years), it is less clear how these associations emerge and are modulated by individual and environmental factors. In this study, 116 4- to 5-years old Argentinean children from different socio-environmental contexts (i.e., favorable or unfavorable living conditions at home), performed a task of visual emotional memory in which they observed a set of 15 images with variable emotional valences (negative, neutral, and positive). The child’s task was to appraise each image using one of the following three possible valences: (a) drawings of faces with smiles (positive valence), (b) drawings of faces with tears and round mouth with edges down (negative valence), or (c) drawings of faces with horizontal mouth (neutral valence). Five years-old children exhibited greater accuracy appraisal. Individual differences in emotional accuracy appraisal allowed us to observe different performances in free recall of negative visual images. Accuracy appraisal did not vary between children with respect to gender, living conditions at home, or language ability. Seven to ten days after the emotional appraisal children were asked to tell the experimenter all the images they remembered (variables of interest: free recall of negative, positive, or neutral images). Results showed individual (age) differences. Specifically, 5-years-old children evoked more images than 4-years-old children. These findings contribute to the understanding of emotional memory in early developmental stages and raise the need to include emotional appraisal in the assessment of episodic memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eliana Ruetti
- Unidad de Neurobiología Aplicada, Centro de Educación Médica e Investigación Clínica Norberto Quirno (CEMIC), Buenos Aires, Argentina.,Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - María Soledad Segretin
- Unidad de Neurobiología Aplicada, Centro de Educación Médica e Investigación Clínica Norberto Quirno (CEMIC), Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Verónica Adriana Ramírez
- Unidad de Neurobiología Aplicada, Centro de Educación Médica e Investigación Clínica Norberto Quirno (CEMIC), Buenos Aires, Argentina.,Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Sebastian J Lipina
- Unidad de Neurobiología Aplicada, Centro de Educación Médica e Investigación Clínica Norberto Quirno (CEMIC), Buenos Aires, Argentina
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14
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Aksu Dunya B, McKown C, Smith E. Psychometric Properties and Differential Item Functioning of a Web-Based Assessment of Children’s Emotion Recognition Skill. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1177/0734282919881919] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Emotion recognition (ER) involves understanding what others are feeling by interpreting nonverbal behavior, including facial expressions. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of a web-based social ER assessment designed for children in kindergarten through third grade. Data were collected from two separate samples of children. The first sample included 3,224 children and the second sample included 4,419 children. Data were calibrated using Rasch dichotomous model. Differential item and test functioning were also evaluated across gender and ethnicity. Across both samples, we found consistent item fit, unidimensional item structure, and adequate item targeting. Analyses of differential item functioning (DIF) found six out of 111 items displaying DIF across gender and no items demonstrating DIF across ethnicity. The analyses of person measure calibrations with and without DIF items yielded no evidence of differential test functioning (DTF) across gender and ethnicity groups in both samples.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Clark McKown
- Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA
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15
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Stewart E, Lah S, Smith ML. Patterns of impaired social cognition in children and adolescents with epilepsy: The borders between different epilepsy phenotypes. Epilepsy Behav 2019; 100:106146. [PMID: 30894295 DOI: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.01.031] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2018] [Revised: 01/22/2019] [Accepted: 01/23/2019] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
Over the past decade, a growing number of studies have shown that children and adolescents with focal and generalized epilepsies have marked impairments in social cognition, including deficits in facial emotion perception (FEP) and Theory of Mind (ToM). At present, it remains unclear whether FEP and ToM impairments are comparable in children with focal and generalized epilepsies or whether distinct syndrome-specific deficits have emerged. This question of whether unique or overlapping social cognitive profiles exist in epilepsy is of interest, given that the revised International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) classification guidelines propose that seizures arise from a diseased network (i.e., network account), rather than being confined to discrete regions near the site of seizure foci (i.e., localization account). The purpose of this review was as follows: (1) to summarize studies examining FEP and ToM in pediatric patients with epilepsy, (2) to examine epilepsy and psychosocial correlates of these difficulties, and (3) to determine whether patterns of sociocognitive impairment better support a localization or neural network account of epilepsy. Twelve studies were reviewed examining FEP (N = 5) and/or ToM (N = 8). Findings revealed significant FEP and ToM impairments across the studied subgroups with epilepsy, which did not differ between children with generalized and focal (localization-related) epilepsies nor among children with different subtypes of localization-related epilepsy. Similarly, other epilepsy variables (i.e., seizure frequency, side of seizure focus, number of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) or surgical status) were not related to FEP or ToM, with the exception of younger age at seizure onset and longer duration of epilepsy. Several studies documented a significant relationship between impaired ToM and reduced social competence in pediatric patients with epilepsy, whereas evidence for a relationship between FEP and psychosocial functioning is currently weak. In conclusion, findings suggest that social cognitive impairments represent a shared feature of epilepsy in childhood. The results support a neural network account of epilepsy, in which a shared neural network of dysfunction may be underlying social cognitive deficits in this group. Further research is needed to examine the functional correlates of social cognitive impairments, as well as to evaluate screening tools and treatment methods to identify and address significant social and emotional difficulties in this patient group. This article is part of the Special Issue "Epilepsy and social cognition across the lifespan".
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth Stewart
- School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2007, Australia
| | - Suncica Lah
- School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2007, Australia
| | - Mary Lou Smith
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada; Neurosciences and Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada.
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16
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Stewart E, Catroppa C, Gonzalez L, Gill D, Webster R, Lawson J, Sabaz M, Mandalis A, Barton B, McLean S, Lah S. Facial emotion perception and social competence in children (8 to 16 years old) with genetic generalized epilepsy and temporal lobe epilepsy. Epilepsy Behav 2019; 100:106301. [PMID: 31133510 DOI: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.04.054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/28/2019] [Revised: 04/01/2019] [Accepted: 04/27/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Facial emotion perception (FEP) impairments are common in adults with epilepsy and associated with impaired psychosocial functioning. Research into the presence of FEP deficits in children with epilepsy and the functional implications of these deficits is limited. The primary aims of this study were to assess FEP abilities in children (8 to 16 years old) with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE) and temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and examine whether FEP is related to everyday social functioning. Forty-four children (8 to 16 years) with epilepsy (22 GGE, 22 TLE) and 22 typically developing controls completed the Pictures of Facial Affect (POFA) battery to assess FEP and a brief test of intellectual functioning (intelligence quotient [IQ]). Parents completed questionnaires assessing social competence of their child. Neurologists completed the Global Assessment of Severity of Epilepsy (GASE) scale as a measure of overall epilepsy severity. Demographic and clinical information was obtained from medical records and clinical interviews with parents. Findings revealed significant, overall FEP impairments and reduced social competence in children with GGE and TLE compared to controls. The magnitude of FEP impairment (i.e., across all emotions) was comparable in the two epilepsy groups, yet different emotions were impaired in each group: children with GGE were impaired in recognizing anger and disgust, whereas children with TLE were impaired in sadness and disgust, compared to controls. Contrary to expectations, total FEP accuracy was not significantly correlated with social competence in either epilepsy group. In conclusion, children with GGE and TLE have significant impairments recognizing emotional expressions on faces. Further research is needed to examine whether underlying FEP impairments relate to social and emotional functioning in children with epilepsy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth Stewart
- School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, 94 - 100 Mallett Street, Camperdown, Sydney, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Sydney, Australia
| | - Cathy Catroppa
- Murdoch Children's Research Institute, 50 Flemington Road, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Linda Gonzalez
- Murdoch Children's Research Institute, 50 Flemington Road, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Deepak Gill
- T.Y Nelson Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Corner Hawkesbury Road and Hainsworth Street, Westmead, Sydney, Australia
| | - Richard Webster
- T.Y Nelson Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Corner Hawkesbury Road and Hainsworth Street, Westmead, Sydney, Australia
| | - John Lawson
- Department of Neurology, Sydney Children's Hospital, High Street Randwick, Sydney, Australia
| | - Mark Sabaz
- Department of Psychology, Sydney Children's Hospital, High Street Randwick, Sydney, Australia
| | - Anna Mandalis
- Department of Psychology, Sydney Children's Hospital, High Street Randwick, Sydney, Australia
| | - Belinda Barton
- Children's Hospital Education Research Institute, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Corner Hawkesbury Road and Hainsworth Street, Westmead, Sydney, Australia
| | - Samantha McLean
- T.Y Nelson Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Corner Hawkesbury Road and Hainsworth Street, Westmead, Sydney, Australia
| | - Suncica Lah
- School of Psychology, The University of Sydney, 94 - 100 Mallett Street, Camperdown, Sydney, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Sydney, Australia.
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17
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De Stefani E, Nicolini Y, Belluardo M, Ferrari PF. Congenital facial palsy and emotion processing: The case of Moebius syndrome. GENES BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR 2019; 18:e12548. [PMID: 30604920 DOI: 10.1111/gbb.12548] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2018] [Revised: 11/16/2018] [Accepted: 12/15/2018] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
According to the Darwinian perspective, facial expressions of emotions evolved to quickly communicate emotional states and would serve adaptive functions that promote social interactions. Embodied cognition theories suggest that we understand others' emotions by reproducing the perceived expression in our own facial musculature (facial mimicry) and the mere observation of a facial expression can evoke the corresponding emotion in the perceivers. Consequently, the inability to form facial expressions would affect the experience of emotional understanding. In this review, we aimed at providing account on the link between the lack of emotion production and the mechanisms of emotion processing. We address this issue by taking into account Moebius syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that primarily affects the muscles controlling facial expressions. Individuals with Moebius syndrome are born with facial paralysis and inability to form facial expressions. This makes them the ideal population to study whether facial mimicry is necessary for emotion understanding. Here, we discuss behavioral ambiguous/mixed results on emotion recognition deficits in Moebius syndrome suggesting the need to investigate further aspects of emotional processing such as the physiological responses associated with the emotional experience during developmental age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elisa De Stefani
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Ylenia Nicolini
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Mauro Belluardo
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Pier Francesco Ferrari
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.,Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, CNRS, Université de Lyon, Lyon, France
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18
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Stack DM, Matte-Gagné C, Dickson DJ. Persistence of Effects of VLBW/PT Birth Status and Maternal Emotional Availability (EA) on Child EA Trajectories. Front Psychol 2019; 9:2715. [PMID: 30761058 PMCID: PMC6361804 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02715] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2018] [Accepted: 12/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Few studies have examined the longitudinal impact of birth status on the infant-mother relationship and on children's socio-emotional development. In the present study we investigated developmental patterns of such relationships [using the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales] in fullterm and VLBW/PT infants from infancy to emerging school age. Our objectives were to: (a) model the developmental trajectories of EA dimensions (maternal sensitivity, structuring, non-hostility; child responsiveness, involvement) in a VLBW/PT and fullterm sample, (b) identify potential effects of VLBW/PT status on these trajectories, and (c) determine whether the effects of VLBW/PT status on children's socio-emotional development (child EA) remained after accounting for the effect of maternal EA. Child-mother dyads (n = 109) were observed in home-based interactions (face-to-face and free play) when children were 6, 12, 18, and 57-months-old in fullterm (37-41 weeks, >2500 g; n = 48) and healthy VLBW/PT (26-32 weeks gestation, birth weight 800-1500 g, corrected for gestational age; n = 61) children. Developmental trajectories of maternal and child EA were assessed using multilevel growth modeling in Mplus. Results indicated that, even after controlling for maternal EA, there was a persistent negative effect of VLBW/PT birth status on child EA trajectories. Both initially and over time, VLBW/PT infants lagged behind their fullterm counterparts on levels of responsiveness and involvement with mothers. There was also a persistent positive effect of maternal EA (sensitivity and structuring) on child EA trajectories. Higher average levels of maternal sensitivity and structuring across time were also associated with higher and persistent levels of child responsiveness and involvement of their mothers. Importantly, results held after modeling both effects together, and after controlling for maternal education and child gender. Our results have implications for VLBW/PT children's development, the parent-child relationship, and integrating family level factors and relationship dimensions in early prevention and intervention programs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dale M. Stack
- Centre for Research in Human Development, Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada
| | | | - Daniel J. Dickson
- Centre for Research in Human Development, Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada
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19
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Abdul Rahman A, Wiebe SA. Valence matters: An electrophysiological study on how emotions influence cognitive performance in children. Dev Psychobiol 2018; 61:290-303. [PMID: 30548999 DOI: 10.1002/dev.21813] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2018] [Revised: 11/06/2018] [Accepted: 11/08/2018] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Emotional stimuli have been found to influence cognitive performance in children, but it is not clear whether this effect varies with the cognitive demands of the task. In this study, we examined how emotional expressions influenced cognitive performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) in early and middle childhood under varying cognitive control demands. Two groups of children (4.5-6.0 and 7.0-8.5 years) completed a modified flanker task where the stimuli were faces displaying task-irrelevant emotional expressions. Emotional influence varied depending on emotional valence: Accuracy was greater for happy targets, while response time and N2 latency were longer for angry targets. In younger children only, angry targets elicited a larger late frontal negativity. Cognitive control demands did not modulate the effect of emotions on behavioral performance or ERPs, contrasting with findings in adults. Findings are discussed in relation to the dual competition model and previous work demonstrating a positivity bias in children.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aishah Abdul Rahman
- Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
| | - Sandra A Wiebe
- Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.,Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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20
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Richoz AR, Lao J, Pascalis O, Caldara R. Tracking the recognition of static and dynamic facial expressions of emotion across the life span. J Vis 2018; 18:5. [PMID: 30208425 DOI: 10.1167/18.9.5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The effective transmission and decoding of dynamic facial expressions of emotion is omnipresent and critical for adapted social interactions in everyday life. Thus, common intuition would suggest an advantage for dynamic facial expression recognition (FER) over the static snapshots routinely used in most experiments. However, although many studies reported an advantage in the recognition of dynamic over static expressions in clinical populations, results obtained from healthy participants are contrasted. To clarify this issue, we conducted a large cross-sectional study to investigate FER across the life span in order to determine if age is a critical factor to account for such discrepancies. More than 400 observers (age range 5-96) performed recognition tasks of the six basic expressions in static, dynamic, and shuffled (temporally randomized frames) conditions, normalized for the amount of energy sampled over time. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical step-linear model to capture the nonlinear relationship between age and FER for the different viewing conditions. Although replicating the typical accuracy profiles of FER, we determined the age at which peak efficiency was reached for each expression and found greater accuracy for most dynamic expressions across the life span. This advantage in the elderly population was driven by a significant decrease in performance for static images, which was twice as large as for the young adults. Our data posit the use of dynamic stimuli as being critical in the assessment of FER in the elderly population, inviting caution when drawing conclusions from the sole use of static face images to this aim.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anne-Raphaëlle Richoz
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland.,LPNC, University of Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France
| | - Junpeng Lao
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
| | | | - Roberto Caldara
- Eye and Brain Mapping Laboratory (iBMLab), Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
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21
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Categorical emotion recognition from voice improves during childhood and adolescence. Sci Rep 2018; 8:14791. [PMID: 30287837 PMCID: PMC6172235 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-32868-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2017] [Accepted: 08/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Converging evidence demonstrates that emotion processing from facial expressions continues to improve throughout childhood and part of adolescence. Here we investigated whether this is also the case for emotions conveyed by non-linguistic vocal expressions, another key aspect of social interactions. We tested 225 children and adolescents (age 5–17) and 30 adults in a forced-choice labeling task using vocal bursts expressing four basic emotions (anger, fear, happiness and sadness). Mixed-model logistic regressions revealed a small but highly significant change with age, mainly driven by changes in the ability to identify anger and fear. Adult-level of performance was reached between 14 and 15 years of age. Also, across ages, female participants obtained better scores than male participants, with no significant interaction between age and sex effects. These results expand the findings showing that affective prosody understanding improves during childhood; they document, for the first time, continued improvement in vocal affect recognition from early childhood to mid- adolescence, a pivotal period for social maturation.
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22
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Quantifying facial expression signal and intensity use during development. J Exp Child Psychol 2018; 174:41-59. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.05.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2017] [Revised: 05/10/2018] [Accepted: 05/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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23
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Mancini G, Biolcati R, Agnoli S, Andrei F, Trombini E. Recognition of Facial Emotional Expressions Among Italian Pre-adolescents, and Their Affective Reactions. Front Psychol 2018; 9:1303. [PMID: 30123150 PMCID: PMC6085998 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01303] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2017] [Accepted: 07/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The recognition of emotional facial expressions is a central aspect for an effective interpersonal communication. This study aims to investigate whether changes occur in emotion recognition ability and in the affective reactions (self-assessed by participants through valence and arousal ratings) associated with the viewing of basic facial expressions during preadolescence (n = 396, 206 girls, aged 11-14 years, Mage = 12.73, DS = 0.91). Our results confirmed that happiness is the best recognized emotion during preadolescence. However, a significant decrease in recognition accuracy across age emerged for fear expressions. Moreover, participants' affective reactions elicited by the vision of happy facial expressions resulted to be the most pleasant and arousing compared to the other emotional expressions. On the contrary, the viewing of sadness was associated with the most negative affective reactions. Our results also revealed a developmental change in participants' affective reactions to the stimuli. Implications are discussed by taking into account the role of emotion recognition as one of the main factors involved in emotional development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giacomo Mancini
- Department of Education, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Roberta Biolcati
- Department of Education, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Sergio Agnoli
- Marconi Institute for Creativity, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Sasso Marconi, Italy
| | - Federica Andrei
- Department of Psychology, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Elena Trombini
- Department of Psychology, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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24
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Vetter NC, Drauschke M, Thieme J, Altgassen M. Adolescent Basic Facial Emotion Recognition Is Not Influenced by Puberty or Own-Age Bias. Front Psychol 2018; 9:956. [PMID: 29977212 PMCID: PMC6022279 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00956] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2017] [Accepted: 05/24/2018] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Basic facial emotion recognition is suggested to be negatively affected by puberty onset reflected in a “pubertal dip” in performance compared to pre- or post-puberty. However, findings remain inconclusive. Further, research points to an own-age bias, i.e., a superior emotion recognition for peer faces. We explored adolescents’ ability to recognize specific emotions. Ninety-five children and adolescents, aged 8–17 years, judged whether the emotions displayed by adolescent or adult faces were angry, sad, neutral, or happy. We assessed participants a priori by pubertal status while controlling for age. Results indicated no “pubertal dip”, but decreasing reaction times across adolescence. No own-age bias was found. Taken together, basic facial emotion recognition does not seem to be disrupted during puberty as compared to pre- and post-puberty.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nora C Vetter
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.,Department of Psychiatry and Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
| | - Mandy Drauschke
- Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Juliane Thieme
- Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Mareike Altgassen
- Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands
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25
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Whitaker LR, Simpson A, Roberson D. Brief Report: Is Impaired Classification of Subtle Facial Expressions in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Related to Atypical Emotion Category Boundaries? J Autism Dev Disord 2018; 47:2628-2634. [PMID: 28578469 DOI: 10.1007/s10803-017-3174-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Impairments in recognizing subtle facial expressions, in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), may relate to difficulties in constructing prototypes of these expressions. Eighteen children with predominantly intellectual low-functioning ASD (LFA, IQ <80) and two control groups (mental and chronological age matched), were assessed for their ability to classify emotional faces, of high, medium and low intensities, as happy or angry. For anger, the LFA group made more errors for lower intensity expressions than the control groups, classifications did not differ for happiness. This is the first study to find that the LFA group made more across-valence errors than controls. These data are consistent with atypical facial expression processing in ASD being associated with differences in the structure of emotion categories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lydia R Whitaker
- Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK.
| | - Andrew Simpson
- Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK
| | - Debi Roberson
- Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK
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26
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Guarnera M, Hichy Z, Cascio M, Carrubba S, Buccheri SL. Facial Expressions and the Ability to Recognize Emotions from the Eyes or Mouth: A Comparison Between Children and Adults. The Journal of Genetic Psychology 2017; 178:309-318. [DOI: 10.1080/00221325.2017.1361377] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Maria Guarnera
- Department of Human and Social Sciences, Università degli Studi di Enna Kore, Enna, Italy
| | - Zira Hichy
- Dipartimento di Processi Formativi, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
| | - Maura Cascio
- Department of Human and Social Sciences, Università degli Studi di Enna Kore, Enna, Italy
| | - Stefano Carrubba
- School of Psychology, Social Work and Human Sciences, University of West London, Slough, United Kingdom
| | - Stefania L. Buccheri
- Department of Human and Social Sciences, Università degli Studi di Enna Kore, Enna, Italy
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27
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Wang L, Chen W, Li H. Use of 3D faces facilitates facial expression recognition in children. Sci Rep 2017; 7:45464. [PMID: 28368008 PMCID: PMC5377359 DOI: 10.1038/srep45464] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2016] [Accepted: 02/28/2017] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
This study assessed whether presenting 3D face stimuli could facilitate children’s facial expression recognition. Seventy-one children aged between 3 and 6 participated in the study. Their task was to judge whether a face presented in each trial showed a happy or fearful expression. Half of the face stimuli were shown with 3D representations, whereas the other half of the images were shown as 2D pictures. We compared expression recognition under these conditions. The results showed that the use of 3D faces improved the speed of facial expression recognition in both boys and girls. Moreover, 3D faces improved boys’ recognition accuracy for fearful expressions. Since fear is the most difficult facial expression for children to recognize, the facilitation effect of 3D faces has important practical implications for children with difficulties in facial expression recognition. The potential benefits of 3D representation for other expressions also have implications for developing more realistic assessments of children’s expression recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lamei Wang
- Joint International Research Laboratory of Child Development and Health, College of Psychology and Sociology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.,Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Wenfeng Chen
- Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Hong Li
- Joint International Research Laboratory of Child Development and Health, College of Psychology and Sociology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
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28
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Jones AC, Gutierrez R, Ludlow AK. The role of motion and intensity in deaf children’s recognition of real human facial expressions of emotion. Cogn Emot 2017; 32:102-115. [DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2017.1289894] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Anna C. Jones
- Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London, London, UK
| | | | - Amanda K. Ludlow
- Department of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
- Department of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
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29
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Wang Y, Su Y, Yan S. Facial Expression Recognition in Children with Cochlear Implants and Hearing Aids. Front Psychol 2016; 7:1989. [PMID: 28066306 PMCID: PMC5174088 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01989] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2016] [Accepted: 12/06/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Facial expression recognition (FER) is an important aspect of effective interpersonal communication. In order to explore whether the development of FER was delayed in hearing impaired children, 44 child participants completed labeling, and matching tasks to identify four basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, and fear). Twenty-two participants had either a cochlear implant (CI) or a hearing aid (HA) while 22 had normal hearing and participants were matched across conditions by age and gender. The results showed that children with a CI or HA were developmentally delayed not only in their emotion-labeling (verbal) tasks but also in their emotion-matching (nonverbal) tasks. For all participants, the emotion-labeling task was more difficult than the emotion-matching task. Additionally, the relative difficulty of recognizing four different emotional expressions was similar between verbal and nonverbal tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yifang Wang
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, Department of Psychology, Capital Normal University Beijing, China
| | - Yanjie Su
- Department of Psychology, Peking University Beijing, China
| | - Song Yan
- School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
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30
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Booker JA, Dunsmore JC. Affective Social Competence in Adolescence: Current Findings and Future Directions. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2016. [DOI: 10.1111/sode.12193] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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31
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Heubeck BG, Butcher PR, Thorneywork K, Wood J. Loving and angry? Happy and sad? Understanding and reporting of mixed emotions in mother-child relationships by 6- to 12-year-olds. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2015; 34:245-60. [PMID: 26676630 DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12128] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2015] [Revised: 11/11/2015] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The Evaluative Space Model of emotions allows for the coactivation of positive-appetitive and negative-avoidant systems, but few studies have examined mixed emotions in child development. Existing research suggests children's understanding of opposite valence emotion combinations emerges by approximately 11 years of age. However, it is not yet clear whether various opposite valence combinations are understood at different ages, nor whether children can understand them in others before they have experienced such mixed emotions themselves. Semi-structured interviews with 97 children investigated whether they regarded six combinations of opposite valence mixed emotions as possible, could provide reasons for them, and report their own experience of each in the context of mother-child relationships. Both understanding that such combinations are possible and ability to provide reasons for them increased after age 6 and up to age 11, but were still incomplete in 12-year-olds. Understanding of different opposite valence combinations developed at different rates. At each age, fewer children who showed understanding of these combinations in others reported having had a similar experience themselves. The findings suggest a need to systematically examine a range of mixed emotions in order to develop a comprehensive theory of the development of mixed emotion understanding. They also suggest extending research into adolescence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bernd G Heubeck
- Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
| | - Phillipa R Butcher
- Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
| | - Kristie Thorneywork
- Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
| | - Jeff Wood
- Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
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Balas B, Huynh C, Saville A, Schmidt J. Orientation biases for facial emotion recognition during childhood and adulthood. J Exp Child Psychol 2015; 140:171-83. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.07.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2014] [Revised: 07/03/2015] [Accepted: 07/05/2015] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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Roy-Charland A, Perron M, Young C, Boulard J, Chamberland JA. The Confusion of Fear and Surprise: A Developmental Study of the Perceptual-Attentional Limitation Hypothesis Using Eye Movements. The Journal of Genetic Psychology 2015; 176:281-98. [PMID: 26244819 DOI: 10.1080/00221325.2015.1066301] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
The goal of the present study was to test the Perceptual-Attentional Limitation Hypothesis in children and adults by manipulating the distinctiveness between expressions and recording eye movements. Children 3-5 and 9-11 years old as well as adults were presented pairs of expressions and required to identify a target emotion. Children 3-5 years old were less accurate than those 9-11 years old and adults. All children viewed pictures longer than adults but did not spend more time attending to the relevant cues. For all participants, accuracy for the recognition of fear was lower than for surprise when the distinctive cue was in the brow only. They also took longer and spent more time in both the mouth and brow zones than when a cue was in the mouth or both areas. Adults and children 9-11 years old made more comparisons between the expressions when fear comprised a single distinctive cue in the brow than when the distinctive cue was in the mouth only or when both cues were present. Children 3-5 years old made more comparisons for brow only than both. The results of the present study extend on the Perceptual-Attentional Limitation Hypothesis showing an importance of both decoder and stimuli, and an interaction between decoder and stimuli characteristics.
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MacNamara A, Vergés A, Kujawa A, Fitzgerald KD, Monk CS, Phan KL. Age-related changes in emotional face processing across childhood and into young adulthood: Evidence from event-related potentials. Dev Psychobiol 2015. [PMID: 26220144 DOI: 10.1002/dev.21341] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Socio-emotional processing is an essential part of development, and age-related changes in its neural correlates can be observed. The late positive potential (LPP) is a measure of motivated attention that can be used to assess emotional processing; however, changes in the LPP elicited by emotional faces have not been assessed across a wide age range in childhood and young adulthood. We used an emotional face matching task to examine behavior and event-related potentials (ERPs) in 33 youth aged 7-19 years old. Younger children were slower when performing the matching task. The LPP elicited by emotional faces but not control stimuli (geometric shapes) decreased with age; by contrast, an earlier ERP (the P1) decreased with age for both faces and shapes, suggesting increased efficiency of early visual processing. Results indicate age-related attenuation in emotional processing that may stem from greater efficiency and regulatory control when performing a socio-emotional task.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annmarie MacNamara
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.
| | - Alvaro Vergés
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
| | - Autumn Kujawa
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
| | | | | | - K Luan Phan
- Departments of Psychiatry, Psychology and Anatomy and Cell Biology, and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
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Guarnera M, Hichy Z, Cascio MI, Carrubba S. Facial Expressions and Ability to Recognize Emotions From Eyes or Mouth in Children. EUROPES JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2015; 11:183-96. [PMID: 27247651 PMCID: PMC4873105 DOI: 10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2014] [Accepted: 02/14/2015] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
This research aims to contribute to the literature on the ability to recognize anger, happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust and neutral emotions from facial information. By investigating children’s performance in detecting these emotions from a specific face region, we were interested to know whether children would show differences in recognizing these expressions from the upper or lower face, and if any difference between specific facial regions depended on the emotion in question. For this purpose, a group of 6-7 year-old children was selected. Participants were asked to recognize emotions by using a labeling task with three stimulus types (region of the eyes, of the mouth, and full face). The findings seem to indicate that children correctly recognize basic facial expressions when pictures represent the whole face, except for a neutral expression, which was recognized from the mouth, and sadness, which was recognized from the eyes. Children are also able to identify anger from the eyes as well as from the whole face. With respect to gender differences, there is no female advantage in emotional recognition. The results indicate a significant interaction ‘gender x face region’ only for anger and neutral emotions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria Guarnera
- Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, University of Enna "KORE", Enna, Italy
| | - Zira Hichy
- Department of Educational Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
| | - Maura I Cascio
- Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, University of Enna "KORE", Enna, Italy
| | - Stefano Carrubba
- School of Psychology, Social Work and Human Sciences, University of West London, London, United Kingdom
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Griffiths S, Penton-Voak IS, Jarrold C, Munafò MR. No Own-Age Advantage in Children's Recognition of Emotion on Prototypical Faces of Different Ages. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0125256. [PMID: 25978656 PMCID: PMC4433217 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0125256] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/28/2014] [Accepted: 03/21/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
We test whether there is an own-age advantage in emotion recognition using prototypical younger child, older child and adult faces displaying emotional expressions. Prototypes were created by averaging photographs of individuals from 6 different age and sex categories (male 5-8 years, male 9-12 years, female 5-8 years, female 9-12 years, adult male and adult female), each posing 6 basic emotional expressions. In the study 5-8 year old children (n = 33), 9-13 year old children (n = 70) and adults (n = 92) labelled these expression prototypes in a 6-alternative forced-choice task. There was no evidence that children or adults recognised expressions better on faces from their own age group. Instead, child facial expression prototypes were recognised as accurately as adult expression prototypes by all age groups. This suggests there is no substantial own-age advantage in children's emotion recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Griffiths
- School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom; Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit (MRC IEU) at the University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
| | - Ian S Penton-Voak
- School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
| | - Chris Jarrold
- School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
| | - Marcus R Munafò
- School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom; Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit (MRC IEU) at the University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom; UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
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37
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Castro VL, Cheng Y, Halberstadt AG, Grühn D. EUReKA! A Conceptual Model of Emotion Understanding. EMOTION REVIEW 2015; 8:258-268. [PMID: 27594904 DOI: 10.1177/1754073915580601] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
The field of emotion understanding is replete with measures, yet lacks an integrated conceptual organizing structure. To identify and organize skills associated with the recognition and knowledge of emotions, and to highlight the focus of emotion understanding as localized in the self, in specific others, and in generalized others, we introduce the conceptual framework of Emotion Understanding in Recognition and Knowledge Abilities (EUReKA). We then categorize fifty-six existing methods of emotion understanding within this framework to highlight current gaps and future opportunities in assessing emotion understanding across the lifespan. We hope the EUReKA model provides a systematic and integrated framework for conceptualizing and measuring emotion understanding for future research.
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38
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The development of emotion concepts: A story superiority effect in older children and adolescents. J Exp Child Psychol 2015; 131:186-92. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.10.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2014] [Revised: 10/23/2014] [Accepted: 10/27/2014] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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39
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Rodger H, Vizioli L, Ouyang X, Caldara R. Mapping the development of facial expression recognition. Dev Sci 2015; 18:926-39. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 81] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2014] [Accepted: 10/16/2014] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Helen Rodger
- Department of Psychology; University of Fribourg; Switzerland
| | - Luca Vizioli
- Department of Psychology; University of Fribourg; Switzerland
| | - Xinyi Ouyang
- Department of Psychology; University of Fribourg; Switzerland
| | - Roberto Caldara
- Department of Psychology; University of Fribourg; Switzerland
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40
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Chronaki G, Hadwin JA, Garner M, Maurage P, Sonuga-Barke EJS. The development of emotion recognition from facial expressions and non-linguistic vocalizations during childhood. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2014; 33:218-36. [PMID: 25492258 DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 68] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2014] [Revised: 10/24/2014] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Sensitivity to facial and vocal emotion is fundamental to children's social competence. Previous research has focused on children's facial emotion recognition, and few studies have investigated non-linguistic vocal emotion processing in childhood. We compared facial and vocal emotion recognition and processing biases in 4- to 11-year-olds and adults. Eighty-eight 4- to 11-year-olds and 21 adults participated. Participants viewed/listened to faces and voices (angry, happy, and sad) at three intensity levels (50%, 75%, and 100%). Non-linguistic tones were used. For each modality, participants completed an emotion identification task. Accuracy and bias for each emotion and modality were compared across 4- to 5-, 6- to 9- and 10- to 11-year-olds and adults. The results showed that children's emotion recognition improved with age; preschoolers were less accurate than other groups. Facial emotion recognition reached adult levels by 11 years, whereas vocal emotion recognition continued to develop in late childhood. Response bias decreased with age. For both modalities, sadness recognition was delayed across development relative to anger and happiness. The results demonstrate that developmental trajectories of emotion processing differ as a function of emotion type and stimulus modality. In addition, vocal emotion processing showed a more protracted developmental trajectory, compared to facial emotion processing. The results have important implications for programmes aiming to improve children's socio-emotional competence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Georgia Chronaki
- Section of Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, UK.,Developmental Brain-Behaviour Laboratory, Psychology, University of Southampton, UK
| | - Julie A Hadwin
- Developmental Brain-Behaviour Laboratory, Psychology, University of Southampton, UK
| | - Matthew Garner
- Psychology, Faculty of Social & Human Sciences & Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, UK
| | - Pierre Maurage
- Laboratory for Experimental Psychopathology, Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Catholic University of Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| | - Edmund J S Sonuga-Barke
- Developmental Brain-Behaviour Laboratory, Psychology, University of Southampton, UK.,Department of Experimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
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41
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Martins EC, Osório A, Veríssimo M, Martins C. Emotion understanding in preschool children. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT 2014. [DOI: 10.1177/0165025414556096] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
This investigation was aimed at studying the relations between executive functions (EFs) and categorical emotion understanding while controlling for preschoolers’ IQ, language ability and theory of mind (ToM). Specifically, we wanted to analyse the association between emotion understanding and set shifting, due to the lack of studies with this EF. Data of 75 children aged 4½ years (52% boys) was collected in two laboratory visits. Emotion understanding was assessed using the Emotion Recognition Questionnaire, inhibitory control using the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task and set shifting using a version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort task. IQ was evaluated using the WPPSI-R, language using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised; and ToM using six standardized tasks. Set shifting, but not inhibitory control, predicted emotion understanding, over and above mothers’ age, and children’s IQ, language ability, and ToM. Mothers’ age and children’s language ability were also significant predictors in the final regression model. Results suggest that the capacity to shift mental sets is linked with inter-individual differences in children’s understanding of situational causes of emotion. Therefore studying EFs as correlates of emotion understanding is an important focus of future research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eva Costa Martins
- Maia University Institute - ISMAI & Center for Psychology at University of Porto, Portugal
| | - Ana Osório
- Cognitive and Social Neuroscience Laboratory, Center for Biological and Health Sciences, Mackenzie Presbyterian University, São Paulo, Brazil
| | | | - Carla Martins
- School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
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42
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Parmley M, Cunningham JG. She looks sad, but he looks mad: the effects of age, gender, and ambiguity on emotion perception. The Journal of Social Psychology 2014; 154:323-38. [PMID: 25154116 DOI: 10.1080/00224545.2014.901287] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
Abstract
This study investigated how target sex, target age, and expressive ambiguity influence emotion perception. Undergraduate participants (N = 192) watched morphed video clips of eight child and eight adult facial expressions shifting from neutral to either sadness or anger. Participants were asked to stop the video clip when they first saw an emotion appear (perceptual sensitivity) and were asked to identify the emotion that they saw (accuracy). Results indicate that female participants identified sad expressions sooner in female targets than in male targets. Participants were also more accurate identifying angry facial expressions by male children than by female children. Findings are discussed in terms of the effects of ambiguity, gender, and age on the perception of emotional expressions.
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43
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Barbosa-Leiker C, Strand PS, Mamey MR, Downs A. Psychometric properties of the Emotion Understanding Assessment with Spanish- and English-speaking preschoolers attending Head Start. Assessment 2014; 21:628-36. [PMID: 24590076 DOI: 10.1177/1073191114524017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The Emotion Understanding Assessment (EUA) is based on a theoretical model of recognizing emotion expressions and reasoning about situation-based, desire-based, and belief-based emotions. While research has noted that emotion understanding predicts current and future social and academic functioning, little is known about the psychometric properties of the EUA. This research sought to test the EUA factor structure and measurement invariance across gender, across language (English and Spanish speakers), and over time (24 weeks) in 281 preschoolers attending Head Start. Results indicated that a two-factor model of emotion expression recognition and emotional perspective taking of the EUA fit the data for the total sample, for each group (gender and language), and at each time point. Furthermore, configural and scalar invariance of the EUA was demonstrated across gender, language, and time. These results offer support that the EUA is assessing emotion expression recognition and emotional perspective taking constructs equivalently in boy, girls, Spanish and English speakers, and over time. Examination of latent means across groups and time indicate no differences in emotion understanding based on gender or language or over the 24-week time frame in this sample of preschoolers attending Head Start.
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Affiliation(s)
- Celestina Barbosa-Leiker
- College of Nursing, Washington State University, Spokane, WA, USA Department of Psychology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
| | - Paul S Strand
- Department of Psychology, Washington State University, Tri Cities, WA, USA
| | - Mary Rose Mamey
- Department of Psychology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
| | - Andrew Downs
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Portland, Portland, OR, USA
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44
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Thompson AE, Voyer D. Sex differences in the ability to recognise non-verbal displays of emotion: a meta-analysis. Cogn Emot 2014; 28:1164-95. [PMID: 24400860 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2013.875889] [Citation(s) in RCA: 209] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
The present study aimed to quantify the magnitude of sex differences in humans' ability to accurately recognise non-verbal emotional displays. Studies of relevance were those that required explicit labelling of discrete emotions presented in the visual and/or auditory modality. A final set of 551 effect sizes from 215 samples was included in a multilevel meta-analysis. The results showed a small overall advantage in favour of females on emotion recognition tasks (d=0.19). However, the magnitude of that sex difference was moderated by several factors, namely specific emotion, emotion type (negative, positive), sex of the actor, sensory modality (visual, audio, audio-visual) and age of the participants. Method of presentation (computer, slides, print, etc.), type of measurement (response time, accuracy) and year of publication did not significantly contribute to variance in effect sizes. These findings are discussed in the context of social and biological explanations of sex differences in emotion recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashley E Thompson
- a Department of Psychology , University of New Brunswick , Fredericton , NB , Canada
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45
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Mancini G, Agnoli S, Baldaro B, Bitti PER, Surcinelli P. Facial expressions of emotions: recognition accuracy and affective reactions during late childhood. THE JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2013; 147:599-617. [PMID: 24199514 DOI: 10.1080/00223980.2012.727891] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study examined the development of recognition ability and affective reactions to emotional facial expressions in a large sample of school-aged children (n = 504, ages 8-11 years of age). Specifically, the study aimed to investigate if changes in the emotion recognition ability and the affective reactions associated with the viewing of facial expressions occur during late childhood. Moreover, because small but robust gender differences during late-childhood have been proposed, the effects of gender on the development of emotion recognition and affective responses were examined. The results showed an overall increase in emotional face recognition ability from 8 to 11 years of age, particularly for neutral and sad expressions. However, the increase in sadness recognition was primarily due to the development of this recognition in boys. Moreover, our results indicate different developmental trends in males and females regarding the recognition of disgust. Last, developmental changes in affective reactions to emotional facial expressions were found. Whereas recognition ability increased over the developmental time period studied, affective reactions elicited by facial expressions were characterized by a decrease in arousal over the course of late childhood.
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46
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Korkman M, Lahti-Nuuttila P, Laasonen M, Kemp SL, Holdnack J. Neurocognitive development in 5- to 16-year-old North American children: A cross-sectional study. Child Neuropsychol 2013; 19:516-39. [DOI: 10.1080/09297049.2012.705822] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
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47
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Rosenqvist J, Lahti-Nuuttila P, Laasonen M, Korkman M. Preschoolers' recognition of emotional expressions: relationships with other neurocognitive capacities. Child Neuropsychol 2013; 20:281-302. [PMID: 23550561 DOI: 10.1080/09297049.2013.778235] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
We cross-sectionally examined the development of the ability to recognize facial expressions of emotions in preschool-aged children and the relationship between this ability and other neurocognitive capacities, that is, attention/executive functions, language, memory/learning, sensorimotor functions, theory of mind, and visuospatial processing. Children aged 3 to 6 years with no significant developmental deficits (N = 370) were assessed with a nonverbal matching task of emotion recognition ability: The Affect Recognition subtest from the NEPSY-II. The relationship between emotion recognition ability and other neurocognitive capacities was analyzed using correlation, regression, and commonality analyses. The results showed that (a) emotion recognition ability improved with age-this development decelerating mildly between ages 5 and 6-(b) emotion recognition ability correlated with all other neurocognitive capacities, and (c) language, attention/executive functions, and theory of mind were significant predictors of emotion recognition ability in the regression analysis. As revealed by the commonality analysis, and in contrast to most previous studies, language was the most important predictor of nonverbal emotion recognition ability. These results suggest that nonverbal emotion matching is an early maturing skill that develops in relation to other neurocognitive capacities, especially linguistic ability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Johanna Rosenqvist
- a Institute of Behavioural Sciences , University of Helsinki , Helsinki , Finland
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48
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Parker AE, Mathis ET, Kupersmidt JB. How is this child feeling? Preschool-aged children's ability to recognize emotion in faces and body poses. EARLY EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 2013; 24:188-211. [PMID: 27057129 PMCID: PMC4821465 DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2012.657536] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
The study examined children's recognition of emotion from faces and body poses, as well as gender differences in these recognition abilities. Preschool-aged children (N = 55) and their parents and teachers participated in the study. Preschool-aged children completed a web-based measure of emotion recognition skills, which included five tasks (three with faces and two with bodies). Parents and teachers reported on children's aggressive behaviors and social skills. Children's emotion accuracy on two of the three facial tasks and one of the body tasks was related to teacher reports of social skills. Some of these relations were moderated by child gender. In particular, the relationships between emotion recognition accuracy and reports of children's behavior were stronger for boys than girls. Identifying preschool-aged children's strengths and weaknesses in identification of emotion from faces and body poses may be helpful in guiding interventions with children who have problems with social and behavioral functioning that may be due, in part, to emotional knowledge deficits. Further developmental implications of these findings are discussed.
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49
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Birmingham E, Meixner T, Iarocci G, Kanan C, Smilek D, Tanaka JW. The moving window technique: a window into developmental changes in attention during facial emotion recognition. Child Dev 2012; 84:1407-24. [PMID: 23252761 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
The strategies children employ to selectively attend to different parts of the face may reflect important developmental changes in facial emotion recognition. Using the Moving Window Technique (MWT), children aged 5-12 years and adults (N = 129) explored faces with a mouse-controlled window in an emotion recognition task. An age-related increase in attention to the left eye emerged at age 11-12 years and reached significance in adulthood. This left-eye bias is consistent with previous eye tracking research and findings of a perceptual bias for the left side of faces. These results suggest that a strategic attentional bias to the left eye begins to emerge at age 11-12 years and is likely established sometime in adolescence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elina Birmingham
- Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.
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50
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Wong N, Beidel DC, Sarver DE, Sims V. Facial emotion recognition in children with high functioning autism and children with social phobia. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 2012; 43:775-94. [PMID: 22528028 DOI: 10.1007/s10578-012-0296-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/20/2023]
Abstract
Recognizing facial affect is essential for effective social functioning. This study examines emotion recognition abilities in children aged 7-13 years with High Functioning Autism (HFA = 19), Social Phobia (SP = 17), or typical development (TD = 21). Findings indicate that all children identified certain emotions more quickly (e.g., happy < anger, disgust, sad < fear) and more accurately (happy) than other emotions (disgust). No evidence was found for negative interpretation biases in children with HFA or SP (i.e., all groups showed similar ability to discriminate neutral from non-neutral facial expressions). However, distinct between-group differences emerged when considering facial expression intensity. Specifically, children with HFA detected mild affective expressions less accurately than TD peers. Behavioral ratings of social effectiveness or social anxiety were uncorrelated with facial affect recognition abilities across children. Findings have implications for social skills treatment programs targeting youth with skill deficits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nina Wong
- Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.
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