Vocal communication of affect and its perception in three- to four-year-old children

Little information is available on very young children's identification of vocal-verbal expressions of affect and the accurate differentiation of various affect types. The present study examined the perception of affective prosodic intonation patterns in 10 normal children aged 39 to 48 months. Audio-recordings of affective intonation patterns (angry, happy, neutral, and sad) served as perceptual stimuli. The children were asked to match each auditory stimulus with an appropriate visual-facial representation. Analysis showed that children's correct identification exceeded errors by more than 2 to 1. There was a significant difference in the identification of different types of emotions. All types of affect, except neutral, occurred above chance. Misperceptions from all categories fell predominantly into the happy category, an apparent "pollyanna" effect. Receptive language age, sex, and IQ did not affect the outcome, but chronological age did. Results are discussed in terms of perceptual salience of acoustic parameters and other factors. Possible effects of emotional trauma on the performance of one subject are discussed.