Nelson Nicole L, Mondloch Catherine J
Brock University, Department of Psychology, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, L2S3A1, St. Catharines, ON, United States; University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Brock University, Department of Psychology, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, L2S3A1, St. Catharines, ON, United States.
Behav Processes. 2019 Jul;164:193-200. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2019.05.006. Epub 2019 May 7.
Research examining children's understanding of emotional expressions has generally used static, isolated facial expressions presented in a non-interactive context. However, these tasks do not resemble children's experiences with expressions in daily life, where they must attend to a range of information, including others' facial expressions, movements, and the situation surrounding the expression. In this research, we examine the development of visual attention to another's emotional expressions during a live interaction. Via an eye-tracker, children (4-11 years old) and adults viewed an experimenter open a series of opaque boxes and make an expression (happiness, sadness, fear, or disgust) based on the object inside. Participants determined which of four possible objects (stickers, a broken toy, a spider, or dog poop) was in the box. We examined the proportion of the trial in which participants looked to three areas of the face (the eyes, mouth, and nose area), and the available contextual information (the box held by the experimenter, the four objects). Although children spent less time looking to the face than adults did, their pattern of visual attention within the face and to object AOIs did not differ from that of adults. Finally, for adults, increased accuracy was linked to spending less time looking to the objects whereas increased accuracy for children was not strongly linked to any emotion cue. These data indicate that although children spend less time looking to the face during live interactions than adults do, the proportion of time spent looking to areas of the face and context are generally adult-like.
研究儿童对情绪表达的理解时，通常使用在非互动情境中呈现的静态、孤立的面部表情。然而，这些任务与儿童在日常生活中对表情的体验并不相似，在日常生活中，他们必须关注一系列信息，包括他人的面部表情、动作以及表情所处的情境。在本研究中，我们考察了在实时互动过程中对他人情绪表达的视觉注意力发展情况。通过眼动仪，儿童（4至11岁）和成年人观看一名实验者打开一系列不透明盒子，并根据盒子里的物品做出一种表情（高兴、悲伤、恐惧或厌恶）。参与者要确定盒子里是四个可能物品（贴纸、一个坏了的玩具、一只蜘蛛或狗屎）中的哪一个。我们考察了参与者看向面部三个区域（眼睛、嘴巴和鼻子区域）以及可用情境信息（实验者拿着的盒子、四个物品）的试验比例。虽然儿童看向面部的时间比成年人少，但他们在面部内部以及看向物品感兴趣区域的视觉注意力模式与成年人并无差异。最后，对于成年人来说，准确率提高与看向物品的时间减少有关，而对于儿童来说，准确率提高与任何情绪线索都没有强烈关联。这些数据表明，虽然在实时互动中儿童看向面部的时间比成年人少，但看向面部区域和情境的时间比例总体上与成年人相似。
