Document Detail


Categorical perception of facial expressions by 7-month-old infants.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  11694087     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Recent research indicates that adults show categorical perception of facial expressions of emotion. It is not known whether this is a basic characteristic of perception that is present from the earliest weeks of life, or whether it is one that emerges more gradually with experience in perceiving and interpreting expressions. We report two experiments designed to investigate whether young infants, like adults, show categorical perception of facial expressions. 7-month-old infants were shown photographic quality continua of interpolated (morphed) facial expressions derived from two prototypes of fear and happiness. In the first experiment, we used a visual-preference technique to identify the infants' category boundary between happiness and fear. In the second experiment, we used a combined familiarisation-visual-preference technique to compare infants' discrimination of pairs of expressions that were equally physically different but that did or did not cross the emotion-category boundary. The results suggest that 7-month-old infants (i) show evidence of categorical perception of facial expressions of emotion, and (ii) show persistent interest in looking at fearful expressions.
Authors:
E Kotsoni; M de Haan; M H Johnson
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Perception     Volume:  30     ISSN:  0301-0066     ISO Abbreviation:  Perception     Publication Date:  2001  
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2001-11-05     Completed Date:  2001-12-04     Revised Date:  2006-11-15    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  0372307     Medline TA:  Perception     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  1115-25     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. e.kotsoni@psychology.bbk.ac.uk
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Child Psychology*
Child, Preschool
Discrimination (Psychology)
Emotions*
Facial Expression*
Fear
Female
Happiness
Humans
Infant
Male
Pattern Recognition, Visual*
Photic Stimulation / methods

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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