Prototypic Facial Expressions Research Articles

Facial expression recognition in people with medicated and unmedicated Parkinson’s disease

Recognition of facial expressions of emotion was investigated in people with medicated and unmedicated Parkinson’s disease (PD) and matched controls (unmedicated PD, n=16; medicated PD, n=20; controls, n=40). Participants in the medicated group showed some visual impairment (impaired contrast sensitivity) and performed less well on perception of unfamiliar face identity, but did not show significant deficits in the perception of sex, gaze direction, or familiar identity from the face. For both Parkinson’s disease groups, there was evidence of impaired recognition of facial expressions in comparison to controls. These deficits were more consistently noted in the unmedicated group, who were also found to perform worse than the medicated group at recognising disgust from prototypical facial expressions, and at recognising anger and disgust in computer-manipulated images. Although both Parkinson’s disease groups showed impairments of facial expression recognition, the consistently worse recognition of disgust in the unmedicated group is consistent with the hypothesis from previous studies that brain regions modulated by dopaminergic neurons are involved in the recognition of disgust.

A closer look at preschoolers' freely produced labels for facial expressions.

Children's performance on free labeling of prototypical facial expressions of basic emotions is modest and improves only gradually. In 3 data sets (N = 80, ages 4 or 5 years; N = 160, ages 2 to 5 years; N = 80, ages 3 to 4 years), errors remained even when method factors (poor stimuli, unavailability of an appropriate label, or the difficulty of a production task) were controlled. Children's use of emotion labels increased with age in a systematic order: Happy, angry, and sad emerged early and in that order, were more accessible, and were applied broadly (overgeneralized) but systematically. Scared, surprised, and disgusted emerged later and often in that order, were less accessible, and were applied narrowly.

Gender and Preschoolers' Perception of Emotion

A person's gender plays a role in the emotion children attribute to that person, even given unambiguous cues to a basic emotion. Eighty preschoolers (4 or 5 years of age) were asked to name the emotion of either a boy (Judd) or a girl (Suzy) in otherwise identical stories about prototypical emotional events and, separately, as shown with identical prototypical facial expressions. Boys more often labeled Judd than Suzy as disgusted, both in the disgust story and with the disgust face. There was also a trend for girls to label Suzy as afraid more often than Judd, both in the fear story and with the fear face.

The Preschooler's Understanding of the Causes and Consequences of Emotion

RUSSELL, JAMES A. The Preschooler's Understanding o!f the Causes and Coirseyueirces of Emotion. CHILI) 1990, 61, 1872-1881. This article reports evidence on 2 issues: (a) the preDEVELOPI~ENT. schooler's understanding of the causes and consequences of basic emotions, and (h) the relative power of a word, such as happy, versus a facial expression, such as a smile, to evoke that knowledge. Preschoolers (N = 120, mean age = 4-11)completed stories about fear, anger, sadness, happiness, and surprise by telling either why the protagonist felt that way or what the protagonist did when feeling that way. Responses were scored both sul>jectively (rated as appropriate or not) and more objectively (frequency of a judge guessing the question asked). By both criteria, the children did well, distinguishing causes from consequences and between most of the emotions. Conh-ary to what is co~n~nonl~ assumed, children were no more accurate-and sometimes less accurate-when the emotion was specified by a prototypical facial expression than when specified by a word. The study reported in this article was than 7 have been portrayed as understanding aimed at gathering information on two ques- only those emotions associated with a charactions about children's knowledge of emotion: teristic facial or other nonverbal display (Har(a) how much preschoolers know about the ris, 1989, p. 82). And the power of faces precauses and consequences of basic emotions, sumably remains through adulthood, when and (b)the relative power of a word versus a communication of emotion is said to be more facial expression to evoke that knowledge. I powerful through nonverbal than through vershall begin with the second issue. bal channels (Mehrabian, 1972).

Social referencing: The infant's use of emotional signals from a friendly adult with mother present.

Previous studies have demonstrated that 1 -year-old infants look toward their mothers' facial expressions and use the emotional information conveyed. In this study, 46 1-year-olds were confronted with an unusual toy in a context where an experimenter familiar to the infants posed either happy or fearful expressions and where their mothers were present but did not provide facial signals. Most of the infants (83%) referenced the familiarized stranger. Once the adult's facial signals were noted, the infant's instrumental behaviors and expressive responses to the toy were influenced in the direction of the affective valence of the adult's expression. The results indicate that infants may be influenced by the emotional expressions of a much broader group of adults than has previously been recognized. In this study we investigated whether infants would reference an adult other than their mothers and would make use of the affective information obtained. Emotional expressions of others provide important information about environmental events. Recent studies have shown that preverbal infants engage in referencing—they look to others when confronted with a variety of events and use the emotional reactions of others to regulate their own behavior. The infants' mothers provided the emotional signals in these studies, by giving either prototypical facial expressions (Klinnert, 1984; Sorce, Emde, Campos, & Klinnert, 1985) or vocal signals (Svejda & Campos, in press) or by controlling the positive affect in multichannele d responses (Feinman & Lewis, 1983). Although the purpose of these initial studies was to demonstrate that infant behavior is responsive to a social signaling process, the studies also reflect a basic assumption about infants' social referencing: If an infant is responsive to anyone's affective signals, the person most likely to influence the infant is his or her mother. The central role of mothers in infants' social was initially suggested by Campos and Stenberg (1981), who postulated that mother becomes the target of social referencing (p. 295). In fact, the term maternal was sometimes used interchangeably with the term social referenc

Social referencing: The infant's use of emotional signals from a friendly adult with mother present.

Previous studies have demonstrated that 1 -year-old infants look toward their mothers' facial expressions and use the emotional information conveyed. In this study, 46 1-year-olds were confronted with an unusual toy in a context where an experimenter familiar to the infants posed either happy or fearful expressions and where their mothers were present but did not provide facial signals. Most of the infants (83%) referenced the familiarized stranger. Once the adult's facial signals were noted, the infant's instrumental behaviors and expressive responses to the toy were influenced in the direction of the affective valence of the adult's expression. The results indicate that infants may be influenced by the emotional expressions of a much broader group of adults than has previously been recognized. In this study we investigated whether infants would reference an adult other than their mothers and would make use of the affective information obtained. Emotional expressions of others provide important information about environmental events. Recent studies have shown that preverbal infants engage in referencing—they look to others when confronted with a variety of events and use the emotional reactions of others to regulate their own behavior. The infants' mothers provided the emotional signals in these studies, by giving either prototypical facial expressions (Klinnert, 1984; Sorce, Emde, Campos, & Klinnert, 1985) or vocal signals (Svejda & Campos, in press) or by controlling the positive affect in multichannele d responses (Feinman & Lewis, 1983). Although the purpose of these initial studies was to demonstrate that infant behavior is responsive to a social signaling process, the studies also reflect a basic assumption about infants' social referencing: If an infant is responsive to anyone's affective signals, the person most likely to influence the infant is his or her mother. The central role of mothers in infants' social was initially suggested by Campos and Stenberg (1981), who postulated that mother becomes the target of social referencing (p. 295). In fact, the term maternal was sometimes used interchangeably with the term social referenc