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Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Conscious and Non-conscious Representations of Emotional Faces in Asperger's Syndrome
Published on: July 31, 2016
The development of facial emotion recognition: the role of configural information
Karine Durand1, Mathieu Gallay, Alix Seigneuric
1CESG, UMR-CNRS 5170, University of Burgundy, 21 065 Dijon, France. karine.durand@u-bourgogne.fr
Abstract:
The development of children's ability to recognize facial emotions and the role of configural information in this development were investigated. In the study, 100 5-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds and 26 adults needed to recognize the emotion displayed by upright and upside-down faces. The same participants needed to recognize the emotion displayed by the top half of an upright or upside-down face that was or was not aligned with a bottom half that displayed another emotion. The results showed that the ability to recognize facial emotion develops with age, with a developmental course that depends on the emotion to be recognized. Moreover, children at all ages and adults exhibited both an inversion effect and a composite effect, suggesting that children rely on configural information to recognize facial emotions.
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