2-141 - What Expressions Tell Us: The Many Ways Children Use Emotional Information

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Research on children’s understanding of emotional expressions has been heavily focused on whether or not children can correctly name facial expressions. However, in our daily lives, correctly labeling another’s emotion is less important than successfully attending to pertinent emotional information, responding to that information appropriately, and then using that information to guide our next behaviors. Recent research has begun to more closely examine the developmental processes underlying children’s successful use of the emotional information they are exposed to.

The papers in this symposium examine the ways in which children attend to other’s expressions and use that information to respond appropriately. The first paper demonstrates that, within the second year of life, children begin to mirror other’s displays of happiness or crying, responding with positive and negative expressions. The second shows that 16- to 24-month-olds respond in specific, functional, and adaptive ways to other’s emotional expressions. The third outlines developmental changes in 4-10-year-olds’ visual attention to relevant emotional information during an interaction. The fourth outlines how 4-10-year-olds use emotional facial expressions to judge the trustworthiness and dominance of a potential partner. Together, these papers provide evidence that children are developing and refining their ability to use the emotional information in their daily lives, a process that begins in infancy and extends through adolescence. These papers serve to expand and clarify what is currently known about children’s emotion knowledge, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which children incorporate this information back into their social interactions.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Nicole L Nelson, University of Queensland

Individual Presentations

• Emotional Contagion in the First Two Years of Life - Presenting Author: Kana Imuta, University of Queensland; Evena Wong, University of Queensland; Rebecca Then, University of Otago; Ted Ruffman, University of Otago

• The Development of Infant Differential Behavioral Responding to Discrete Emotions - Eric A Walle, University of California, Merced; Presenting Author: Peter Reschke, University of California, Merced; Linda Camras, DePaul University; Joseph J. Campos, University of California, Berkeley

• Children’s Perception of Emotions in the Context of Live Interactions: Eye movements and Emotion Judgments - Presenting Author: Nicole L Nelson, University of Queensland; Abbie Coy, Brock University; Catherine J Mondloch, Brock University

• Picking Trustworthy and Strong Partners: Children’s Use of Subtle Emotional Cues is not Adult-like - Presenting Author: Catherine J Mondloch, Brock University; Ashley Gerada, Brock University; Valentina Proietti, Brock University