Developmental changes in the categorical processing of positive and negative facial expressions (original) (raw)
Related papers
Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 2012
Interpretations of facial expressions with ambiguous valence, like surprised (which can be perceived as having positive or negative valence) reveal individual differences in positivitynegativity biases. Negative interpretations are first and fast, but this initial negativity default can be overridden by regulatory control processes that result in positive interpretations. We tested the initial negativity hypothesis by examining positivity-negativity biases during development. We hypothesized that during childhood, the default negativity mode would be more evident than in adulthood and, as a group, children would show a negativity bias when processing ambiguous facial expressions. We examined ratings of two ambiguous expressions, surprised and neutral expressions, from childhood through adolescence and recorded facial corrugator muscle activity, a physiological index of negative appraisals. Surprised faces were rated as conveying clear negative affect by younger participants as indexed by fast reaction times and negative ratings, and corrugator data showed a corresponding increase in activity to surprised faces. By adolescence, positive ratings of surprised faces became more frequent and reaction times slowed, suggesting that surprised faces were perceived as having more ambiguous meaning. Accordingly, corrugator activity also decreased during adolescence. Neutral faces also produced negative ratings by children, but were also rated as conveying negative affect by older participants. Accordingly, neutral faces also elicited high corrugator activity that was similar to that elicited by angry faces. These data show that early in life, ambiguous facial expressions are perceived as conveying negative meaning, adding support for an initial-negativity hypothesis.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2019
Emotional valence is predominately conveyed in social interactions by words and facial expressions. The existence of broad biases which favor more efficient processing of positive or negative emotions is still a controversial matter. While so far this question has been investigated separately for each modality, in this narrative review of the literature we focus on valence effects in processing both words and facial expressions. In order to identify the factors underlying positivity and negativity effects, and to uncover whether these effects depend on modality and age, we present and analyze three representative overviews of the literature concerning valence effects in word processing, face processing, and combinations of word and face processing. Our analysis of word processing studies points to a positivity bias or a balanced processing of positive and negative words, whereas the analysis of face processing studies showed the existence of separate positivity and negativity biases depending on the experimental paradigm. The mixed results seem to be a product of the different methods and types of stimuli being used. Interestingly, we found that children exhibit a clear positivity advantage for both word and face processing, indicating similar processing biases in both modalities. Over the course of development, the initial positivity advantage gradually disappears, and in some face processing studies even reverses into a negativity bias. We therefore conclude that there is a need for future research that systematically analyses the impact of age and modality on the emergence of these valence effects. Finally, we discuss possible explanations for the presence of the early positivity advantage and its subsequent decrease.
Perceiving arousal and valence in facial expressions: Differences between children and adults
European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2017
Arousal and valence have long been studied as the two primary dimensions for the perception of emotional stimuli such as facial expressions. Prior correlational studies that tested emotion perception along these dimensions found broad similarities between adults and children. However, few studies looked for direct differences between children and adults in these dimensions beyond correlation. We tested 9-year-old children and adults on rating positive and negative facial stimuli based on emotional arousal and valence. Despite high significant correlations between children's and adults' ratings, our findings also showed significant differences between children and adults in terms of rating values: Children rated all expressions as significantly more positive than adults in valence. Children also rated positive emotions as more arousing than adults. Our results show that although perception of facial emotions along arousal and valence follows similar patterns in children and adults, some differences in ratings persist, and vary by emotion type.
Tuning to the Positive: Age-Related Differences in Subjective Perception of Facial Emotion
PloS one, 2016
Facial expressions aid social transactions and serve as socialization tools, with smiles signaling approval and reward, and angry faces signaling disapproval and punishment. The present study examined whether the subjective experience of positive vs. negative facial expressions differs between children and adults. Specifically, we examined age-related differences in biases toward happy and angry facial expressions. Young children (5-7 years) and young adults (18-29 years) rated the intensity of happy and angry expressions as well as levels of experienced arousal. Results showed that young children-but not young adults-rated happy facial expressions as both more intense and arousing than angry faces. This finding, which we replicated in two independent samples, was not due to differences in the ability to identify facial expressions, and suggests that children are more tuned to information in positive expressions. Together these studies provide evidence that children see unambiguous ...
Pre-verbal infants perceive emotional facial expressions categorically
Cognition & emotion, 2018
Adults perceive emotional expressions categorically, with discrimination being faster and more accurate between expressions from different emotion categories (i.e. blends with two different predominant emotions) than between two stimuli from the same category (i.e. blends with the same predominant emotion). The current study sought to test whether facial expressions of happiness and fear are perceived categorically by pre-verbal infants, using a new stimulus set that was shown to yield categorical perception in adult observers (Experiments 1 and 2). These stimuli were then used with 7-month-old infants (N = 34) using a habituation and visual preference paradigm (Experiment 3). Infants were first habituated to an expression of one emotion, then presented with the same expression paired with a novel expression either from the same emotion category or from a different emotion category. After habituation to fear, infants displayed a novelty preference for pairs of between-category exp...
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2010
Using 20 levels of intensity, we measured children's thresholds to discriminate the six basic emotional expressions from neutral and their misidentification rates. Combined with the results of a previous study using the same method (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102 , the results indicate that by 5 years of age, children are adult-like, or nearly adult-like, for happy expressions on all measures. Children's sensitivity to other expressions continues to improve between 5 and 10 years of age (e.g., surprise, disgust, fear) or even after 10 years of age (e.g., anger, sad). The results indicate that there is a slow development of sensitivity to the expression of all basic emotions except happy. This slow development may impact children's social and cognitive development by limiting their sensitivity to subtle expressions of disapproval or disappointment.
Categorical representation of facial expressions by 7-month-old infants
Developmental Psychology, 1988
Categorical perception, demonstrated as reduced discrimination of within-category relative to between-category differences in stimuli, has been found in a variety of perceptual domains in adults. To examine the development of categorical perception in the domain of facial expression processing, we used behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) methods to assess discrimination of within-category (happy-happy) and between-category (happy-sad) differences in facial expressions in 7-month-old infants. Data from a visual paired-comparison test and recordings of attention-sensitive ERPs showed no discrimination of facial expressions in the within-category condition whereas reliable discrimination was observed in the between-category condition. The results also showed that face-sensitive ERPs over occipital-temporal scalp (P400) were attenuated in the within-category condition relative to the between-category condition, suggesting a potential neural basis for the reduced within-category sensitivity. Together, these results suggest that the neural systems underlying categorical representation of facial expressions emerge during the early stages of postnatal development, before acquisition of language.
Facial expressions and ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children
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.
Emotion Review, 2013
According to a common sense theory, facial expressions signal specific emotions to people of all ages and therefore provide children easy access to the emotions of those around them. The evidence, however, does not support that account. Instead, children's understanding of facial expressions is poor and changes qualitatively and slowly over the course of development. Initially, children divide facial expressions into two simple categories (feels good, feels bad). These broad categories are then gradually differentiated until an adult system of discrete categories is achieved, likely in the teen years. Children's understanding of most specific emotions begins not with facial expressions, but with their understanding of the emotion's antecedents and behavioral consequences.
Influence of intensity on children’s sensitivity to happy, sad, and fearful facial expressions
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2009
Most previous studies investigating children's ability to recognize facial expressions used only intense exemplars. Here we compared the sensitivity of 5-, 7-, and 10-year-olds with that of adults (n = 24 per age group) for less intense expressions of happiness, sadness, and fear. The developmental patterns differed across expressions. For happiness, by 5 years of age, children were as sensitive as adults even to low intensities. For sadness, by 5 years of age, children were as accurate as adults in judging that the face was expressive (i.e., not neutral), but even at 10 years of age, children were more likely to misjudge it as fearful. For fear, children's thresholds were not adult-like until 10 years of age, and children often confused it with sadness at 5 years of age. For all expressions, including even happy expressions, 5-and 7-year-olds were less accurate than adults in judging which of two expressions was more intense. Together, the results indicate that there is slow development of accurate decoding of subtle facial expressions.