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Adult Perceptions of Positive and Negative Infant Emotional Expressions
Author(s) -
Dinehart Laura H. Bolzani,
Messinger Daniel S.,
Acosta Susan I.,
Cassel Tricia,
Ambadar Zara,
Cohn Jeffrey
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
infancy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.361
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1532-7078
pISSN - 1525-0008
DOI - 10.1207/s15327078in0803_5
Subject(s) - psychology , facial expression , perception , emotional expression , developmental psychology , arousal , face perception , set (abstract data type) , social perception , face (sociological concept) , social psychology , communication , neuroscience , social science , sociology , computer science , programming language
Adults' perceptions provide information about the emotional meaning of infant facial expressions. This study asks whether similar facial movements influence adult perceptions of emotional intensity in both infant positive (smile) and negative (cry face) facial expressions. Ninety‐five college students rated a series of naturally occurring and digitally edited images of infant facial expressions. Naturally occurring smiles and cry faces involving the co‐occurrence of greater lip movement, mouth opening, and eye constriction, were rated as expressing stronger positive and negative emotion, respectively, than expressions without these 3 features. Ratings of digitally edited expressions indicated that eye constriction contributed to higher ratings of positive emotion in smiles (i.e., in Duchenne smiles) and greater eye constriction contributed to higher ratings of negative emotion in cry faces. Stronger mouth opening contributed to higher ratings of arousal in both smiles and cry faces. These findings indicate a set of similar facial movements are linked to perceptions of greater emotional intensity, whether the movements occur in positive or negative infant emotional expressions. This proposal is discussed with reference to discrete, componential, and dynamic systems theories of emotion.