Individual differences in emotional expression discrimination are associated with emotion label production in toddlers

Abstract

It is possible that the visual discrimination of emotion categories and emotion word vocabulary develop via common emotion-specific processes. In contrast, it is possible that they develop with vocabulary development more generally. This study contrasts these two possibilities. Twenty-three 26-month-olds participated in a visual perceptual discrimination task involving emotional facial expressions. After familiarization to a 100% happy face, toddlers were tested for their visual preference for a novel sad face in a side-by-side presentation paired with the familiar happy face. Parental report was used to quantify production of emotion words and vocabulary generally. Visual preference for the novel emotion (sad) in the discrimination task correlated with emotion word vocabulary size but not with overall vocabulary size.

Keywords:

• Emotion development
• emotion
• facial emotional expressions
• emotion labels

Notes

¹ Children in this study were concurrently participating in a study looking at facial emotional processing along the Happy–Sad continuum. The discrimination task was one of two perceptual tasks children completed during their visit. Only looking-time results from the discrimination task were used to correlate with emotional language abilities.