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Developmental changes in infants' processing of happy and angry facial expressions: a neurobehavioral study

Tobias Grossmann1, Tricia Striano, Angela D Friederici

  • 1Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. t.grossmann@bbk.ac.uk

Brain and Cognition
|December 16, 2006
PubMed

Insights

Infant brain responses to faces change significantly between 7 and 12 months. Early on, infants show more brain activity to happy faces, but by 12 months, they react more strongly to angry faces.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental psychology
  • Cognitive neuroscience
  • Infant perception

Background:

  • Facial expression recognition is crucial for social development.
  • Understanding how infants process emotional faces provides insights into early social-emotional learning.
  • Previous research suggests infants are sensitive to emotional cues, but developmental trajectories are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the developmental changes in processing happy and angry facial expressions in infants.
  • To examine age-related differences in brain responses (event-related potentials) to emotional faces.
  • To determine if observed electrophysiological differences correlate with behavioral visual preferences.

Main Methods:

  • Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 7- and 12-month-old infants while viewing happy and angry facial expressions.
  • Experiment 1 focused on 7-month-olds' ERPs to happy vs. angry faces.
  • Experiment 2 focused on 12-month-olds' ERPs to happy vs. angry faces.
  • Experiment 3 used behavioral methods to assess visual preference for facial expressions.

Main Results:

  • Seven-month-olds exhibited a larger negativity at frontal, central, temporal, and parietal sites in response to happy faces.
  • Twelve-month-olds showed a larger negativity at occipital sites in response to angry faces.
  • Behavioral visual preference data did not fully explain the observed ERP differences between age groups.

Conclusions:

  • Infant processing of facial emotions undergoes significant development between 7 and 12 months of age.
  • Seven-month-olds display heightened sensitivity to happy faces, while 12-month-olds show increased sensitivity to angry faces, mirroring adult patterns.
  • The developmental shift in emotional face processing is not solely attributable to changes in visual preference.

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