Turn that Frown Upside Down! Children Determine the Effectiveness of their Instructions Using Facial Cues

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

In addition to verbal exchanges, individuals use nonverbal cues to communicate. This study assessed children’s ability to use their conversational partner’s facial expression to determine whether they required additional information or not. Children (ages 4 and 5; N=101) played a game with a virtual child listener, in which they attempted to tell the virtual child which box a prize was hidden in. Since the target box (e.g., a boy in a red shirt holding ice cream) was presented along with distractors (e.g., a boy in a green shirt holding ice cream and a boy in a red shirt holding a drink), children had to provide detailed descriptions of pictures on each box to uniquely identify the correct box. After providing their instructions, children were shown a video of the virtual child’s emotional reaction. If the child provided a uniquely identifying description of the target box, the listener would look happy, as if she found the prize. If the child provided an ambiguous description of the target box, the listener would appear sad, as if she did not find the prize. Children were only able to see the listener’s facial expression after she picked up one of the boxes and could not actually see whether or not she had picked up the correct box.

Using multilevel modelling, we found that children were able to successfully use the facial expression of the listener to determine whether or not she found the prize (p < .001). Additionally, children rated their own skill at providing instructions as being higher when the listener was happy compared to when she was sad (p < .001). Further analyses indicated that children with higher executive functioning (p <.001), and higher emotion knowledge skills (p < .001) were more effective in making these distinctions. For instance, children with high executive functioning and emotion knowledge were more likely to rate the trial as successful following seeing the listener look happy compared to those with weak executive functioning and emotion knowledge skills. When the listener appeared sad, children with high executive functioning and emotion knowledge were more likely to rate the trial as unsuccessful compared to those with weak executive functioning and emotion knowledge. We also found that children were able to use the facial expression of the listener to guide their communicative behavior. That is, children recognized the need to provide more information to the listener to help her to find the prize after seeing her look sad (p < .001). Children with stronger emotion knowledge were also better at determining when more information was required than those with weaker emotion knowledge (p = .01).

Overall, this study demonstrates that children are able to make inferences about communication using their listener’s facial expression, and that emotion recognition and executive functioning support this ability. Children are also able to use these inferences to guide their communicative behavior. These findings add to the literature exploring children’s use of a variety of cues from listeners to correct miscommunications.

Authors

• Sarah Bacso, University of Waterloo
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Nilsen, University of Waterloo
  Non-Presenting Author

• Janel Silva, University of Waterloo
  Non-Presenting Author