Kang Kathleen, Anthoney Laura, Mitchell Peter
School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
Perception. 2017 Sep;46(9):1077-1089. doi: 10.1177/0301006617709674. Epub 2017 May 15.
Being able to recognize facial expressions of basic emotions is of great importance to social development. However, we still know surprisingly little about children's developing ability to interpret emotions that are expressed dynamically, naturally, and subtly, despite real-life expressions having such appearance in the vast majority of cases. The current research employs a new technique of capturing dynamic, subtly expressed natural emotional displays (happy, sad, angry, shocked, and disgusted). Children aged 7, 9, and 11 years (and adults) were systematically able to discriminate each emotional display from alternatives in a five-way choice. Children were most accurate in identifying the expression of happiness and were also relatively accurate in identifying the expression of sadness; they were far less accurate than adults in identifying shocked and disgusted. Children who performed well academically also tended to be the most accurate in recognizing expressions, and this relationship maintained independently of chronological age. Generally, the findings testify to a well-developed ability to recognize very subtle naturally occurring expressions of emotions.
能够识别基本情绪的面部表情对社交发展至关重要。然而，尽管在绝大多数现实生活情境中表情都是动态、自然且微妙地呈现，但令人惊讶的是，我们对儿童解读此类情绪表达的发展能力仍知之甚少。当前的研究采用了一种新的技术来捕捉动态、微妙表达的自然情绪表现（开心、悲伤、愤怒、震惊和厌恶）。7岁、9岁和11岁的儿童（以及成年人）能够在五项选择中系统地将每种情绪表现与其他选项区分开来。儿童在识别开心表情时最为准确，识别悲伤表情时也相对准确；但在识别震惊和厌恶表情时，他们远不如成年人准确。学业成绩好的儿童在识别表情方面往往也最准确，这种关系独立于实际年龄而存在。总体而言，这些发现证明了儿童具备识别非常微妙的自然情绪表达的良好能力。
