Neural correlates of infants' visual responsiveness to facial expressions of emotion.

Charles A Nelson,Michelle De Haan

doi:10.1002/(sici)1098-2302(199611)29:7<577::aid-dev3>3.0.co;2-r

Charles A Nelson, Michelle De Haan

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https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1098-2302(199611)29:7<577::aid-dev3>3.0.co;2-r

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Journal: Developmental psychobiology	Publication Date: Nov 1, 1996
Citations: 239	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: University of Minnesota

Abstract

An extensive literature documents the infant's ability to recognize and discriminate a variety of facial expressions of emotion. However, little is known about the neural bases of this ability. To examine the neural processes that may underlie infants' responses to facial expressions, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) while 7-month-olds watched pictures of a happy face and a fearful face (Experiment 1) or an angry face and a fearful face (Experiment 2). In both experiments an early positive component, a middle-latency negative component and a later positive component were elicited. However, only when the infants saw the happy and fearful faces did the components differ for the two expressions. These results are discussed in the context of the neurobiological processes involved in preceiving facial expressions.

Highlights

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For each event-related potentials (ERPs) component, a separate repeated measures ANOVA with emotion and lead (Pz, Cz, Fz, T3, T4) as the within subject factors was computed for peak latency and peak amplitude
The amplitude of the two positive components was greater for the happy expression than for the fearful expression

Summary

Introduction

The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. To examine the neural processes that may underlie infants’ responses to facial expressions, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) while 7-month-olds watched pictures of a happy face and a fearful face (Experiment 1) or an angry face and a fearful face (Experiment 2). The emotions expressed in a face may be important because they represent the most prominent channel for perceiving affect ( the voice conveys affect; see Fernald, 1993;WalkerAndrews & Lennon, 1991) It is not surprising, that numerous investigators over the past 15 years have attempted to determine how well infants can recognize different facial expressions of emotion (for reviews see Nelson, 1985, 1987; Nelson & de Haan, in press; Oster, Daily, & Goldenthal, 1989; Walker-Andrews, 1988)

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