The Development of Emotion Recognition

Author(s):  
Sherri C. Widen

At all ages, children interpret and respond to the emotions of others. Traditionally, it has been assumed that children’s emotion knowledge was based on an early understanding of facial expressions in terms of specific, discrete emotions. More recent evidence suggests that this assumption is incorrect. As described by the broad-to-differentiated hypothesis, children’s initial emotion concepts are broad and valence based. Gradually, children differentiate within these initial concepts by linking the different components of an emotion together (e.g., the cause to the consequence, etc.) until their concepts resemble adults’ emotion concepts. Contrary to traditional assumptions, facial expressions are neither the starting point for most emotion concepts nor are they the strongest cue to emotions. Instead, just like any other component of an emotion concept, facial expressions must be differentiated from the valence-based concepts and linked to the other components of the specific emotion concept.

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 532-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania Sette ◽  
Tracy L. Spinrad ◽  
Emma Baumgartner

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relations of children’s emotion knowledge (and its components) and socially appropriate behavior to peer likability in a sample of Italian preschool children at two time-points. At both Time 1 (T1; n = 46 boys, 42 girls) and a year later at Time 2 (T2; n = 26 boys, 22 girls), children’s emotion knowledge (i.e., emotion recognition, situation knowledge) was assessed, teachers evaluated children’s socially appropriate behavior, and peer likability was measured using a sociometric procedure. A two-wave autoregressive cross-lagged model indicated that children’s T1 emotion recognition was associated with higher T2 socially appropriate behavior, and children’s T1 socially appropriate behavior was related to higher T2 peer likability, even after controlling for stability in the constructs. Socially appropriate behavior mediated the relation between preschool children’s emotion recognition and peer likability. No bidirectional associations were found. The results support the notion that teacher training should focus on promoting children’s emotion knowledge to create a classroom atmosphere characterized by positive social behaviors and harmonious peer relationships across the preschool years.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 627-641
Author(s):  
Beyza Aksu Dunya ◽  
Clark McKown ◽  
Everett Smith

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.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianna Schiano Lomoriello ◽  
Giulio Caperna ◽  
Elisa De Stefani ◽  
Pier Francesco Ferrari ◽  
Paola Sessa

According to the models of sensorimotor simulation, we recognize others' emotions by subtly mimicking their expressions, which allows us to feel the corresponding emotion via facial feedback. In this contest, facial mimicry, which requires the implicit activation of the motor programs that produce a specific expression, is a crucial phenomenon occurring in emotion recognition, also concerning expression intensity. Consequently, difficulties to produce facial expressions would affect the experience of emotional understanding. In the present investigation, we recruited a sample (N = 11) of patients with Moebius syndrome (MBS), characterized by congenital facial paralysis, and a control group (N = 11) of healthy participants. By leveraging the MBS unique condition, we aimed at investigating the role of facial mimicry and sensorimotor simulation in creating a precise embodied concept of each emotion. The two groups underwent a sensitive facial emotion recognition task, optimally tuned to test sensitivity to emotion intensity and emotion discriminability in terms of their confusability with other emotions. Our study provides evidence of a deficit in recognizing emotions in MBS patients, expressed by a significant decrease in the rating of the intensity of three specific emotion categories, namely sadness, fear and disgust. Moreover, we observed an impairment in detecting these emotions, resulting in a stronger confusability of such emotions with the neutral and the secondary blended emotion. These findings provide support for embodied theories, which hypothesize that sensorimotor systems are involved in the detection and discrimination of emotions.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianna Schiano Lomoriello ◽  
Paola Sessa ◽  
Giulio Caperna ◽  
Pier Francesco Ferrari

According to the models of sensorimotor simulation, we recognize others' emotions by subtly mimicking their expressions, which allows us to feel the corresponding emotion via facial feedback. In this contest, facial mimicry, which requires the implicit activation of the motor programs that produce a specific expression, is a crucial phenomenon occurring in emotion recognition, also concerning expression intensity. Consequently, difficulties to produce facial expressions would affect the experience of emotional understanding. In the present investigation, we recruited a sample (N = 11) of patients with Moebius syndrome (MBS), characterized by congenital facial paralysis, and a control group (N = 11) of healthy participants. By leveraging the MBS unique condition, we aimed at investigating the role of facial mimicry and sensorimotor simulation in creating a precise embodied concept of each emotion. The two groups underwent a sensitive facial emotion recognition task, optimally tuned to test sensitivity to emotion intensity and emotion discriminability in terms of their confusability with other emotions. Our study provides evidence of a deficit in recognizing emotions in MBS patients, expressed by a significant decrease in the rating of the intensity of three specific emotion categories, namely sadness, fear and disgust. Moreover, we observed an impairment in detecting these emotions, resulting in a stronger confusability of such emotions with the neutral and the secondary blended emotion. These findings provide support for embodied theories, which hypothesize that sensorimotor systems are involved in the detection and discrimination of emotions.


Author(s):  
Mircea Zloteanu ◽  
Eva G. Krumhuber ◽  
Daniel C. Richardson

AbstractPeople are accurate at classifying emotions from facial expressions but much poorer at determining if such expressions are spontaneously felt or deliberately posed. We explored if the method used by senders to produce an expression influences the decoder’s ability to discriminate authenticity, drawing inspiration from two well-known acting techniques: the Stanislavski (internal) and Mimic method (external). We compared spontaneous surprise expressions in response to a jack-in-the-box (genuine condition), to posed displays of senders who either focused on their past affective state (internal condition) or the outward expression (external condition). Although decoders performed better than chance at discriminating the authenticity of all expressions, their accuracy was lower in classifying external surprise compared to internal surprise. Decoders also found it harder to discriminate external surprise from spontaneous surprise and were less confident in their decisions, perceiving these to be similarly intense but less genuine-looking. The findings suggest that senders are capable of voluntarily producing genuine-looking expressions of emotions with minimal effort, especially by mimicking a genuine expression. Implications for research on emotion recognition are discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003329412110184
Author(s):  
Paola Surcinelli ◽  
Federica Andrei ◽  
Ornella Montebarocci ◽  
Silvana Grandi

Aim of the research The literature on emotion recognition from facial expressions shows significant differences in recognition ability depending on the proposed stimulus. Indeed, affective information is not distributed uniformly in the face and recent studies showed the importance of the mouth and the eye regions for a correct recognition. However, previous studies used mainly facial expressions presented frontally and studies which used facial expressions in profile view used a between-subjects design or children faces as stimuli. The present research aims to investigate differences in emotion recognition between faces presented in frontal and in profile views by using a within subjects experimental design. Method The sample comprised 132 Italian university students (88 female, Mage = 24.27 years, SD = 5.89). Face stimuli displayed both frontally and in profile were selected from the KDEF set. Two emotion-specific recognition accuracy scores, viz., frontal and in profile, were computed from the average of correct responses for each emotional expression. In addition, viewing times and response times (RT) were registered. Results Frontally presented facial expressions of fear, anger, and sadness were significantly better recognized than facial expressions of the same emotions in profile while no differences were found in the recognition of the other emotions. Longer viewing times were also found when faces expressing fear and anger were presented in profile. In the present study, an impairment in recognition accuracy was observed only for those emotions which rely mostly on the eye regions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Daniel T. Burley ◽  
Christopher W. Hobson ◽  
Dolapo Adegboye ◽  
Katherine H. Shelton ◽  
Stephanie H.M. van Goozen

Abstract Impaired facial emotion recognition is a transdiagnostic risk factor for a range of psychiatric disorders. Childhood behavioral difficulties and parental emotional environment have been independently associated with impaired emotion recognition; however, no study has examined the contribution of these factors in conjunction. We measured recognition of negative (sad, fear, anger), neutral, and happy facial expressions in 135 children aged 5–7 years referred by their teachers for behavioral problems. Parental emotional environment was assessed for parental expressed emotion (EE) – characterized by negative comments, reduced positive comments, low warmth, and negativity towards their child – using the 5-minute speech sample. Child behavioral problems were measured using the teacher-informant Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Child behavioral problems and parental EE were independently associated with impaired recognition of negative facial expressions specifically. An interactive effect revealed that the combination of both factors was associated with the greatest risk for impaired recognition of negative faces, and in particular sad facial expressions. No relationships emerged for the identification of happy facial expressions. This study furthers our understanding of multidimensional processes associated with the development of facial emotion recognition and supports the importance of early interventions that target this domain.


2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Galko ◽  

The ontological question of what there is, from the perspective of common sense, is intricately bound to what can be perceived. The above observation, when combined with the fact that nouns within language can be divided between nouns that admit counting, such as ‘pen’ or ‘human’, and those that do not, such as ‘water’ or ‘gold’, provides the starting point for the following investigation into the foundations of our linguistic and conceptual phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to claim that such phenomena are facilitated by, on the one hand, an intricate cognitive capacity, and on the other by the complex environment within which we live. We are, in a sense, cognitively equipped to perceive discrete instances of matter such as bodies of water. This equipment is related to, but also differs from, that devoted to the perception of objects such as this computer. Behind this difference in cognitive equipment underlies a rich ontology, the beginnings of which lies in the distinction between matter and objects. The following paper is an attempt to make explicit the relationship between matter and objects and also provide a window to our cognition of such entities.


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