Face the music: Children’s facial affect in musical imitation and improvisation tasks

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine facial affect of young children who completed a singing task that included imitation and improvisation. Eighty-nine children (4–6 years: 45 male and 44 female participants) completed three singing conditions from a standard singing test battery (i.e., Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing-Test Battery of Singing Skills [AIRS-TBSS]). These included singing a favorite song, imitating a song, and improvising a song ending. Facial affect was analyzed with Noldus FaceReader software, and subjective responses also were collected. Results revealed children exhibited a happy emotion most prominently during the improvisation and favorite song conditions compared with the imitation condition. However, a higher percentage of surprised emotions were found during the imitation condition. Frequency analysis revealed a significantly different range and final note for the improvisation condition compared with imitation. Children’s self-reported ratings of happiness were related to their displayed facial affect (i.e., happiness) scores in FaceReader ( p < .05). Qualitative data analysis revealed three emerging themes of song familiarity, object association, and song preference. Children exhibited more positive affect when singing a favorite song or improvising. Based on the type of vocal performance task, it is necessary to consider how young children respond to vocal tasks.