This study evaluated the quality of early childhood education (ECE) environments, the quality of teacher-child interactions and the duration of free play in 22 ECE classrooms in the Valencian Community, Spain. Twenty-two ECE teachers of four-and five-year-old preschoolers participated in the study. The quality of ECE environments and teacher-child interactions were evaluated using the ECERS-3 and TSRS, respectively. The time children spent in free play and non-free play was also registered. The study concluded that the quality of ECE environments was minimal. The scores of teachers on emotional support were in the medium-high range and scores in instructional support were low, with direct instruction as the predominant teaching style. Indoor free play was positively related to the overall quality of ECE environments and the quality of teacher-child interactions. The findings of this study are discussed in relation to the results of other studies in the Spanish context. RESUMENEste estudio analizó la calidad del entorno y de la interacción docente-niño y el tiempo dedicado a juego libre en 22 aulas de educación infantil de la Comunidad Valenciana, España. Participaron en el estudio 22 docentes de aulas de educación infantil de cuatro y cinco años. Se evaluó la calidad de los entornos de infantil y el estilo de enseñanza docente con las escalas observacionales ECERS-3 y TSRS, respectivamente, y se registraron los tiempos dedicados al juego libre y al juego no libre. Los resultados indicaron que la calidad global de las aulas era mínima, las puntuaciones de los comportamientos afectivos del profesorado eran medias-altas y bajas en apoyo instruccional, con un predominio de los estilos directivos de enseñanza. El tiempo de juego libre dentro del aula se relacionó positivamente con la calidad global del entorno de infantil y la calidad de la interacción docente-niño. Los resultados de esta investigación se ARTICLE HISTORY

Face recognition is a crucial subject for public health, as socialization is one of the main characteristics for full citizenship. However, good recognizers would be distinguished, not only by the number of faces they discriminate but also by the number of rejected stimuli as unfamiliar. When it comes to face recognition, it is important to remember that position, to some extent, would not entail a high cognitive cost, unlike other processes in similar areas of the brain. The aim of this paper was to examine participant’s recognition profiles according to face position. For this reason, a recognition task was carried out by employing the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces. Reaction times and accuracy were employed as dependent variables and a cluster analysis was carried out. A total of two profiles were identified in participants’ performance, which differ in position in terms of reaction times but not accuracy. The results can be described as follows: first, it is possible to identify performance profiles in visual recognition of faces that differ in position in terms of reaction times, not accuracy; secondly, results suggest a bias towards the left. At the applied level, this could be of interest with a view to conducting training programs in face recognition.