THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RECOGNITION OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION IN CHILDREN

This study examined the development of the recognition of facial expressions of emotion in children, and the effect of the intensity of components of the facial expressions on recognition accuracy. Eight children, between five and eight years of age, were asked to choose, from among several facial expressions, the one which best portrayed the emotions felt by characters in short stories. The results indicated that recognition accuracy was generally above chance for children as young as five years old. Recognition accuracy was also found to increase with age and to vary according to emotions. Happiness, anger and sadness were better recognized than fear, surprise and disgust. The intensity of the components of the facial expressions was found to influence the recognition accuracy only in the case of the expression of disgust. The examination of the errors made by children revealed that the increase in accuracy between 5 and 8-years-olds is related to their ability to better distinguish surprise from fear, surprise from happiness and disgust from fear.