Identification of gradually changing emotional expressions in schoolchildren: The influence of the type of stimuli and of specific symptoms of anxiety

Abstract

We investigated in two hundred twenty-eight schoolchildren aged 8–11 years whether: (a) the ease of identification of gradually changing emotional expressions varies across different types of expressions; (b) “accurate” and “inaccurate” identifications imply different compromises between speed and accuracy; (c) different forms of anxiety (generalised, separation, somatic/panic, social) affect expressions' identification. In all ten trials, presented in the form of a videogame, a neutral face gradually morphed through fourteen steps into one of the five basic facial expressions of joy, anger, fear, disgust and surprise. Analysis of variance showed that the number of mistakes in categorising the anger expression was significantly higher than for any other expression. Survival analyses showed that “anger” was associated with delayed identification, and that accurate and fast performances coincided. Cox's survival function showed that social anxiety was the only anxiety dimension to predict delayed identification of anger. Social anxiety/phobia predicts biased decoding of signs of interpersonal hostility/rejection.

Keywords:

• Expressions of emotions
• Children
• Social anxiety
• Social phobia

Acknowledgements

Supported in part by PRIN grant 2006061953, and a NARSAD 2006 Independent Investigator Award to MB. Annalisa Zanoni is currently a PhD student in the Psychobiology programme at Padua University (tutor: Daniela Palomba).

We thank all children, teachers, and parents for their participation, and Alessandro Nonis for help in the statistical analysis and database organisation.