Center for Cognition, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, NL-6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Cogn Emot. 2011 Feb;25(2):193-205. doi: 10.1080/15298861003771189.
Human faces are among the most important visual stimuli that we encounter at all ages. This importance partly stems from the face as a conveyer of information on the emotional state of other individuals. Previous research has demonstrated specific scanning patterns in response to threat-related compared to non-threat-related emotional expressions. This study investigated how visual scanning patterns toward faces which display different emotional expressions develop during infancy. The visual scanning patterns of 4-month-old and 7-month-old infants and adults when looking at threat-related (i.e., angry and fearful) versus non-threat-related (i.e., happy, sad, and neutral) emotional faces were examined. We found that infants as well as adults displayed an avoidant looking pattern in response to threat-related emotional expressions with reduced dwell times and relatively less fixations to the inner features of the face. In addition, adults showed a pattern of eye contact avoidance when looking at threat-related emotional expressions that was not yet present in infants. Thus, whereas a general avoidant reaction to threat-related facial expressions appears to be present from very early in life, the avoidance of eye contact might be a learned response toward others' anger and fear that emerges later during development.
人脸是我们在各个年龄段都会遇到的最重要的视觉刺激之一。这种重要性部分源于人脸作为传达他人情绪状态信息的载体。先前的研究表明，与非威胁相关的情绪表达相比，人们在面对与威胁相关的情绪表达时会有特定的扫描模式。本研究旨在探讨在婴儿期，对于呈现不同情绪表情的人脸，其视觉扫描模式是如何发展的。本研究观察了 4 个月大和 7 个月大的婴儿以及成年人在观看与威胁相关（即愤怒和恐惧）和非威胁相关（即快乐、悲伤和中性）情绪面孔时的视觉扫描模式。我们发现，婴儿和成年人在面对与威胁相关的情绪表达时，都会表现出回避的视觉模式，表现为注视时间减少，对面部内部特征的注视次数相对较少。此外，成年人在观看与威胁相关的情绪表达时会避免眼神接触，而这种模式在婴儿中尚未出现。因此，虽然对于与威胁相关的面部表情，人们似乎从很小的时候就会产生一种普遍的回避反应，但对于他人的愤怒和恐惧的回避可能是一种在发育后期才出现的习得反应。
