Categorical perception of facial expressions by 7-month-old infants - PubMed

Categorical perception of facial expressions by 7-month-old infants

E Kotsoni et al. Perception. 2001.

Abstract

Recent research indicates that adults show categorical perception of facial expressions of emotion. It is not known whether this is a basic characteristic of perception that is present from the earliest weeks of life, or whether it is one that emerges more gradually with experience in perceiving and interpreting expressions. We report two experiments designed to investigate whether young infants, like adults, show categorical perception of facial expressions. 7-month-old infants were shown photographic quality continua of interpolated (morphed) facial expressions derived from two prototypes of fear and happiness. In the first experiment, we used a visual-preference technique to identify the infants' category boundary between happiness and fear. In the second experiment, we used a combined familiarisation-visual-preference technique to compare infants' discrimination of pairs of expressions that were equally physically different but that did or did not cross the emotion-category boundary. The results suggest that 7-month-old infants (i) show evidence of categorical perception of facial expressions of emotion, and (ii) show persistent interest in looking at fearful expressions.

Similar articles

• Facial expression megamix: tests of dimensional and category accounts of emotion recognition.

  Young AW, Rowland D, Calder AJ, Etcoff NL, Seth A, Perrett DI. Young AW, et al. Cognition. 1997 Jun;63(3):271-313. doi: 10.1016/s0010-0277(97)00003-6. Cognition. 1997. PMID: 9265872

• Pre-verbal infants perceive emotional facial expressions categorically.

  Cong YQ, Junge C, Aktar E, Raijmakers M, Franklin A, Sauter D. Cong YQ, et al. Cogn Emot. 2019 May;33(3):391-403. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1455640. Epub 2018 Apr 2. Cogn Emot. 2019. PMID: 29607731

• Categorical perception of emotional facial expressions in preschoolers.

  Cheal JL, Rutherford MD. Cheal JL, et al. J Exp Child Psychol. 2011 Nov;110(3):434-43. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2011.03.007. Epub 2011 May 20. J Exp Child Psychol. 2011. PMID: 21601218

• Production and perception of facial expressions in infancy and early childhood.

  Field TM, Walden TA. Field TM, et al. Adv Child Dev Behav. 1982;16:169-211. doi: 10.1016/s0065-2407(08)60070-1. Adv Child Dev Behav. 1982. PMID: 7046373 Review. No abstract available.

• Infants' perception of expressive behaviors: differentiation of multimodal information.

  Walker-Andrews AS. Walker-Andrews AS. Psychol Bull. 1997 May;121(3):437-56. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.121.3.437. Psychol Bull. 1997. PMID: 9136644 Review.

Cited by

• Categorical representation of facial expressions in the infant brain.

  Leppänen JM, Richmond J, Vogel-Farley VK, Moulson MC, Nelson CA. Leppänen JM, et al. Infancy. 2009 May;14(3):346-362. doi: 10.1080/15250000902839393. Infancy. 2009. PMID: 20953267 Free PMC article.

• A neurocognitive model of perceptual decision-making on emotional signals.

  Dricu M, Frühholz S. Dricu M, et al. Hum Brain Mapp. 2020 Apr 15;41(6):1532-1556. doi: 10.1002/hbm.24893. Epub 2019 Dec 23. Hum Brain Mapp. 2020. PMID: 31868310 Free PMC article. Review.

• Attentional bias to fearful faces in infants at high risk for autism spectrum disorder.

  Wagner JB, Keehn B, Tager-Flusberg H, Nelson CA. Wagner JB, et al. Emotion. 2020 Sep;20(6):980-992. doi: 10.1037/emo0000628. Epub 2019 Jul 29. Emotion. 2020. PMID: 31355652 Free PMC article.

• The perception of facial expressions in newborns.

  Farroni T, Menon E, Rigato S, Johnson MH. Farroni T, et al. Eur J Dev Psychol. 2007 Mar;4(1):2-13. doi: 10.1080/17405620601046832. Epub 2007 May 3. Eur J Dev Psychol. 2007. PMID: 20228970 Free PMC article.

• Facial emotion processing and language during early-to-middle childhood development: An event related potential study.

  Bigelow FJ, Clark GM, Lum JAG, Enticott PG. Bigelow FJ, et al. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2022 Feb;53:101052. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.101052. Epub 2021 Dec 17. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2022. PMID: 34954666 Free PMC article.

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

• Full Text Sources

  • Atypon

• Medical

  • MedlinePlus Health Information