Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2022 Dec 2;17(12):e0278483. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278483. eCollection 2022.
Emotion reasoning, including labeling of facial expressions, is an important building block for a child's social development. This study investigated age biases in labeling facial expressions in children and adults, focusing on the influence of intensity and expression on age bias. Children (5 to 14 years old; N = 152) and adults (19 to 25 years old; N = 30) labeled happiness, disgust or sadness at five intensity levels (0%; 25%; 50%; 75%; and 100%) in facial images of children and adults. Sensitivity was computed for each of the expression-intensity combinations, separately for the child and adult faces. Results show that children and adults have an age bias at low levels of intensity (25%). In the case of sadness, children have an age bias for all intensities. Thus, the impact of the age of the face seems largest for expressions which might be most difficult to recognise. Moreover, both adults and children label most expressions best in adult rather than child faces, leading to an other-age bias in children and an own-age bias in adults. Overall, these findings reveal that both children and adults exhibit an age bias in labeling subtle facial expressions of emotions.
情绪推理，包括面部表情的标签，是儿童社会发展的重要组成部分。本研究调查了儿童和成人在面部表情标签上的年龄偏见，重点关注强度和表情对年龄偏见的影响。儿童（5 至 14 岁；N = 152）和成人（19 至 25 岁；N = 30）在儿童和成人的面部图像上对五个强度水平（0%；25%；50%；75%和 100%）的快乐、厌恶或悲伤进行了标签。分别为儿童和成人面孔的每个表情-强度组合计算了敏感性。结果表明，儿童和成人在低强度水平（25%）上存在年龄偏见。在悲伤的情况下，儿童在所有强度下都存在年龄偏见。因此，面孔年龄的影响似乎最大的是那些最难以识别的表情。此外，成人和儿童在成人面孔上对大多数表情的标签都最好，导致儿童的异龄偏见和成人的同龄偏见。总体而言，这些发现表明，儿童和成人在标记微妙的情绪面部表情时都表现出年龄偏见。
