Abstract
Recognizing emotional face expressions in others is a valuable non-verbal communication and particularly relevant throughout childhood given that children’s language skills are not yet fully developed, but the first interactions with peers have just started. This study aims to investigate developmental markers of emotional facial expression in children and the effect of age and sex on it. A total of 90 children split into three age groups: 6–7 years old (n = 30); 8–9 years old (n = 30); 10–11 years old (n = 30) took part in the study. Participants were exposed to 38 photos in two exposure times (500 ms and 1000 ms) of children expressing happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and surprise on three intensities, plus images of neutral faces. Happiness was the easiest expression to be recognized, followed by disgust and surprise. As expected, 10–11-year-old group showed the highest accuracy means, whereas 6–7-year-old group had the lowest means of accuracy. Data support the non-existence of female advantage.
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The research reported was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). The authors report no conflicts of interest.
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The research reported was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).
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All authors whose names appear on the submission made substantial contributions to the article. Contributions by author are detailed below according to CRediT taxonomy. Conceptualization: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Adriane Xavier Arteche; Data curation: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Cíntia Pacheco Maia, Carol Nunes Torres, Adriane Xavier Arteche; Formal analysis: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Cíntia Pacheco Maia; Funding acquisition: Aline Romani-Sponchiado; Investigation: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Cíntia Pacheco Maia, Carol Nunes Torres; Methodology: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Adriane Xavier Arteche; Project administration: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Adriane Xavier Arteche; Supervision: Carol Nunes Torres, Adriane Xavier Arteche; Resources: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Carol Nunes Torres; Visualization: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Cíntia Pacheco Maia, Carol Nunes Torres, Inajá Tavares; Writing – original draft: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Cíntia Pacheco Maia, Carol Nunes Torres, Inajá Tavares, Adriane Xavier Arteche; Writing – review & editing: Aline Romani-Sponchiado, Cíntia Pacheco Maia, Carol Nunes Torres, Inajá Tavares, Adriane Xavier Arteche.
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the questionnaire and methodology for this study was approved by the Human Research Ethics committee of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (Ethics approval number: 26068114000005336).
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Editor: Massimiliano Palmiero (University of Bergamo); Reviewers: Giulia Prete (University of Chieti and Pescara) and a second researcher who prefers to remain anonymous.
Romani-Sponchiado and Maia are currently affiliated at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS).
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Romani-Sponchiado, A., Maia, C.P., Torres, C.N. et al. Emotional face expressions recognition in childhood: developmental markers, age and sex effect. Cogn Process 23, 467–477 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-022-01086-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-022-01086-1