Faculty of Humanities, Kyoto University of Advanced Science, Kyoto, Japan.
J Genet Psychol. 2020 Nov-Dec;181(6):489-499. doi: 10.1080/00221325.2020.1825923. Epub 2020 Sep 26.
A label superiority effect refers to the tendency of young children to categorize facial expressions based on emotion labels (e.g., "happy") more accurately than those based on photographs of facial expressions (e.g., "smile"). However, it is unclear whether this effect stems from inaccuracies in children's spontaneous labeling of facial expressions or their tendency not to label facial expressions spontaneously. To further explore the label superiority effect, Japanese children aged 3-5 years ( = 48) were assigned to one of three conditions: label cue, photo cue, and compelled to label, and asked to categorize facial expressions by emotion by placing cards in a box. The children correctly put more facial expressions in the box for label cues than photo cues, but the compelled to label group performed as well as the label cues group. These results suggest that the label superiority effect occurs because children do not label facial expressions spontaneously, and this tendency may explain their difficulty in understanding facial expressions.
标签优势效应是指幼儿基于情绪标签（如“高兴”）对面部表情进行分类的准确性高于基于面部表情照片（如“微笑”）的倾向。然而，目前尚不清楚这种效应是源于儿童对面部表情的自发标签不准确，还是源于他们不倾向于自发地对面部表情进行标签。为了进一步探索标签优势效应，研究招募了 3-5 岁的日本儿童（n=48），并将他们分配到三种条件下：标签线索、照片线索和强制标签，并要求他们通过将卡片放入盒子中来根据情绪对面部表情进行分类。结果发现，儿童将更多的面部表情放入有标签线索的盒子中，而不是放入有照片线索的盒子中，但必须进行标签的那一组表现得和有标签线索的那一组一样好。这些结果表明，标签优势效应的产生是因为儿童不会自发地对面部表情进行标签，而这种倾向可能解释了他们理解面部表情的困难。
