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Infants' Perception of Emotion From Body Movements
Author(s) -
Zieber Nicole,
Kangas Ashley,
Hock Alyson,
Bhatt Ramesh S.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.12134
Subject(s) - psychology , perception , emotion perception , facial expression , cognitive psychology , face perception , social perception , face (sociological concept) , developmental psychology , communication , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience
Adults recognize emotions conveyed by bodies with comparable accuracy to facial emotions. However, no prior study has explored infants' perception of body emotions. In Experiment 1, 6.5‐month‐olds ( n = 32) preferred happy over neutral actions of actors with covered faces in upright but not inverted silent videos. In Experiment 2, infants ( n = 32) matched happy and angry videos to corresponding vocalizations when the videos were upright but not when they were inverted. Experiment 3 ( n = 16) demonstrated that infants' performance in Experiment 2 was not driven by information from the covered face and head. Thus, young infants are sensitive to emotions conveyed by bodies and match them to affective vocalizations, indicating sophisticated emotion processing capabilities early in life.