Abstract
The recognition of emotional facial expressions is a central aspect for an effective interpersonal communication. This study aims to investigate whether changes occur in emotion recognition ability and in the affective reactions (self-assessed by participants through valence and arousal ratings) associated with the viewing of basic facial expressions during preadolescence (n = 396, 206 girls, aged 11–14 years, Mage = 12.73, DS = 0.91). Our results confirmed that happiness is the best recognized emotion during preadolescence. However, a significant decrease in recognition accuracy across age emerged for fear expressions. Moreover, participants' affective reactions elicited by the vision of happy facial expressions resulted to be the most pleasant and arousing compared to the other emotional expressions. On the contrary, the viewing of sadness was associated with the most negative affective reactions. Our results also revealed a developmental change in participants' affective reactions to the stimuli. Implications are discussed by taking into account the role of emotion recognition as one of the main factors involved in emotional development.
Highlights
Facial expression recognition is an essential ability for good interpersonal relations (Niedenthal and Brauer, 2012), and a major subject of study in the fields of human development, psychological well-being, and social adjustment
A more accurate understanding of emotions appears in pre-school age children (Widen and Russell, 2008), it may be that 3-year-olds’ facial expression recognition skills partly depend on task specifications
The findings showed that some changes in facial expression recognition occur during preadolescence
Summary
Facial expression recognition is an essential ability for good interpersonal relations (Niedenthal and Brauer, 2012), and a major subject of study in the fields of human development, psychological well-being, and social adjustment. The ability to recognize basic emotions emerges very early in life, as infants use emotional expressions as behavioral cues. A more accurate understanding of emotions appears in pre-school age children (Widen and Russell, 2008), it may be that 3-year-olds’ facial expression recognition skills partly depend on task specifications. A progressive improvement occurs during school age through middle childhood, up to the emergence of mature recognition patterns in adulthood (Herba et al, 2006; Widen, 2013). It seems that recognition ability has different developmental patterns among emotions (Durand et al, 2007). Once age is accounted for, there is no additional influence of pubertal development on the ability to perceive basic expressions in early adolescence
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