The Generalized Discrimination of Facial Expressions by Seven-Month-Old Infants

Abstract

2 experiments were conducted to examine 7-month-old infants' perception of the facial expressions happy and fear. Using a paired-comparison procedure, infants in the first experiment were able to generalize their discrimination of these 2 expressions across the faces of 4 male and female models if they were first presented with the set of happy faces, but not if they were first presented with the set of fear faces. A second experiment was conducted to examine the source of the stimulus presentation order effect. Here a second group of 7-month-old infants was presented with a single male or female face posing both the happy and fear expressions simultaneously. The results revealed significantly longer looking to the fear face. This preference to look at fear faces is discussed, as are its implications for studies of expression recognition in general.

Influence of intensity on children’s sensitivity to happy, sad, and fearful facial expressions

“…From an evolutionary perspective, the late development of adult-like accuracy for fear is surprising because fear signals potential environmental threat and the need to take action to avoid the threat. Consistent with this evolutionary perspective, by 7 months of age infants generalize habituation across different individual faces showing fearful expression (Nelson & Dolgin, 1985) and they look longer at fearful faces than at happy faces. This early onset of processing of fearful faces may be related to the functioning of a specific brain circuit involving the amygdala (Adolphs, Tranel, Damasio, & Damasio, 1995).…”

Emotion Processing in Infancy

“…One of the most robust findings regarding infant emotion processing is that by 7 months of age infants prefer to look at a fearful face rather than a happy face [de Haan, Belsky, Reid, Volein & Johnson, 2004;Kotsoni, de Haan & Johnson, 2001;Ludemann & Nelson, 1988;Nelson & Dolgin, 1985;Peltola, Leppänen, Maki & Hietanen, 2009]. Consistent with this behavioral finding, 7-month-olds respond with an increased amplitude of the Nc (negative central) component to fearful faces compared with happy faces in studies using ERP [Grossmann et al, 2011;Nelson & de Haan, 1996;Peltola, Leppänen, Maki, et al, 2009].…”

“…A range of studies conducted at different laboratories has demonstrated that infants' attention bias for fearful faces over happy faces seems to emerge by 7 months of age [de Haan et al, 2004;Kotsoni et al, 2001;Ludemann & Nelson, 1988;Nelson & Dolgin, 1985;Peltola, Leppänen, Maki, et al, 2009]. The mechanisms of the development of this bias and its function will be subject to further investigation.…”

A happy story: Developmental changes in children’s sensitivity to facial expressions of varying intensities

“…Although newborns show no evidence of discriminating intense fearful expressions from neutral (Farroni et al, 2007), by 7 months of age infants categorize intense fearful expressions across different individual faces, look longer at such fearful faces than at happy faces, and disengage attention more slowly from intense fearful faces than from neutral or happy faces so as to look at a peripheral target (Nelson & Dolgin, 1985;Peltola, Leppänen, Mäki, & Hietanen, 2009;Peltola, Leppänen, Palokangas, & Hietanen, 2008). As summarized above, by 12 months (the youngest age tested), they also appear to understand the meaning of fearful expressions and respond appropriately to them by avoiding the deep side of the visual cliff (Sorce et al, 1985).…”