The Role of Input in Early Emotion Learning

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Emotions are complex and dynamic, involving multiple components that are constantly changing over time. So, how do children learn to understand other people’s emotions? To answer this question, researchers must deeply consider the input to emotion learning–including faces, voices, and even language. This symposium curates current research and theory across developmental, cognitive, and affective science to highlight the many types of input that are relevant to early emotional development. Featuring researchers from multiple countries, the symposium presents data from over 700 participants from 6 months to 7 years of age.

In this symposium, presentations cover distinct but related research questions about emotion input. Paper 1 examines the substantial variability in which 6-month-olds are exposed to faces and emotion language in their daily lives. Paper 2 uses a longitudinal design to explore how parent-child discussions about emotions relate to 2- to 4-year-olds’ emotion knowledge. Paper 3 demonstrates how probability in emotion input relates to 4- to 7-year-old children’s emotion understanding. The discussant, an expert in early emotional development, will comment on these three papers from a methodological and theoretical perspective–highlighting how our methods must continually evolve to capture the complexity of emotion input.

Taken together, these papers provide valuable insights into how children learn about other people’s emotions. These diverse approaches to considering input to learning will broaden how we study emotion learning as well as learning in other developmental domains.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Marissa Ogren, Rutgers University - Newark

Discussant

• Ashley Ruba, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Individual Presentations

• What Do They See and Hear? 6-month-olds’ Natural Emotional Input from Faces and Language - Presenting Author: Marissa Ogren, Rutgers University - Newark; Lauren Leotti, Rutgers University - Newark; Katie Hoemann, KU Leuven; Lisa M Oakes, University of California - Davis; Lisa Feldman Barrett, Northeastern University; Vanessa LoBue, Rutgers University

• Direct and Indirect Links Between Parent-Child Emotion Conversations and Children’s Emotion Knowledge Across Early Childhood - Presenting Author: Peter J Reschke, Brigham Young University; Brandon Neil Clifford, Arizona State University; Mindy A. Brown, Brigham Young University

• Probability as Input for Children’s Emotion Inferences - Presenting Author: Tiffany Doan, University of Toronto; Ori Friedman, University of Waterloo; Stephanie Denison, University of Waterloo