Going virtual in the early years: 30-month-old toddlers recognize commonly used emojis

Abstract

People nowadays do not only display facial expressions in face to face communication but also in on-line communication using graphical symbols named emojis. The present study explored 30-month-old toddlers’ ability to recognize emojis that represented six basic human emotions. In the study, 38 toddlers first saw scenarios that elicited different emotions in an actor and were asked to visually identify the matching emoji in the presence of a distractor. Eye-tracking results showed that toddlers could correctly identify the emoji that represented the emotion in each scenario. Toddlers then heard different emotion words and were again found to be able to identify the matching emoji. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the ability to recognize and understand the emotional value of emotion symbols in the virtual world emerges early in development.