Oster Harriet
McGhee Division, School of Continuing and Professional Studies, New York University, New York, New York 10012-1165, USA.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2003 Dec;1000:197-204. doi: 10.1196/annals.1280.024.
Darwin viewed "experiments in nature" as an important strategy for elucidating the evolutionary bases of human emotional expressions. Infants with craniofacial anomalies are of special interest because morphological abnormalities and resulting distortions or deficits in their facial expressions could make it more difficult for caregivers to read and accurately interpret their signals. As part of a larger study on the effects of craniofacial anomalies on infant facial expression and parent-infant interaction, infants with different types of craniofacial conditions and comparison infants were videotaped interacting with their mothers at 3 and 6 months. The infants' facial expressions were coded with Baby FACS. Thirty-seven slides of 16 infants displaying 4 distinctive infant expressions (cry face, negative face, interest, and smile) were rated by 38 naive observers on a 7-point scale ranging from intense distress to intense happiness. Their ratings were significantly correlated with ratings based on objective Baby FACS criteria (r > 0.9 in all infant groups). A 4 (infant group) x 4 (expression category) ANOVA showed a significant main effect for expression category, F(3) 5 71.9, P 5 0.000, but no significant effect for infant group or group 3 expression interaction. The observers' ratings were thus highly "accurate" in terms of a priori Baby FACS criteria, even in the case of infants with severely disfiguring facial conditions. These findings demonstrate that the signal value of infant facial expressions is remarkably robust, suggesting that the capacity to read emotional meaning in infants' facial expressions may have a biological basis.
达尔文将“自然实验”视为阐明人类情感表达进化基础的一项重要策略。患有颅面异常的婴儿尤其引人关注，因为形态异常以及由此导致的面部表情扭曲或缺陷可能会使看护者更难读懂并准确解读他们的信号。作为一项关于颅面异常对婴儿面部表情及母婴互动影响的大型研究的一部分，对患有不同类型颅面疾病的婴儿以及作为对照的婴儿在3个月和6个月大时与母亲互动的情况进行了录像。婴儿的面部表情用婴儿面部动作编码系统（Baby FACS）进行编码。16名婴儿的37张幻灯片展示了4种独特的婴儿表情（哭脸、负面表情、兴趣和微笑），38名无先入之见的观察者按照从极度痛苦到极度高兴的7分制进行评分。他们的评分与基于婴儿面部动作编码系统客观标准的评分显著相关（所有婴儿组的r>0.9）。一项4（婴儿组）×4（表情类别）方差分析显示表情类别有显著的主效应，F(3)=71.9，P=0.000，但婴儿组或组×表情交互作用无显著效应。因此，就先验的婴儿面部动作编码系统标准而言，观察者的评分非常“准确”，即使是对于面部严重畸形的婴儿也是如此。这些发现表明婴儿面部表情的信号价值非常稳固，这表明从婴儿面部表情中读取情感意义的能力可能具有生物学基础。
