Age, gender, and puberty influence the development of facial emotion recognition

Abstract

Our ability to differentiate between simple facial expressions of emotion develops between infancy and early adulthood, yet few studies have explored the developmental trajectory of emotion recognition using a single methodology across a wide age-range. We investigated the development of emotion recognition abilities through childhood and adolescence, testing the hypothesis that children’s ability to recognize simple emotions is modulated by chronological age, pubertal stage and gender. In order to establish norms, we assessed 478 children aged 6–16 years, using the Ekman-Friesen Pictures of Facial Affect. We then modeled these cross-sectional data in terms of competence in accurate recognition of the six emotions studied, when the positive correlation between emotion recognition and IQ was controlled. Significant linear trends were seen in children’s ability to recognize facial expressions of happiness, surprise, fear, and disgust; there was improvement with increasing age. In contrast, for sad and angry expressions there is little or no change in accuracy over the age range 6–16 years; near-adult levels of competence are established by middle-childhood. In a sampled subset, pubertal status influenced the ability to recognize facial expressions of disgust and anger; there was an increase in competence from mid to late puberty, which occurred independently of age. A small female advantage was found in the recognition of some facial expressions. The normative data provided in this study will aid clinicians and researchers in assessing the emotion recognition abilities of children and will facilitate the identification of abnormalities in a skill that is often impaired in neurodevelopmental disorders. If emotion recognition abilities are a good model with which to understand adolescent development, then these results could have implications for the education, mental health provision and legal treatment of teenagers.

Dorsal‐movement and ventral‐form regions are functionally connected during visual‐speech recognition

“…The present ASD study sample had reduced brain responses and functional connectivity between the right V5/MT and the left TVSA during visual-speech recognition, compared to typically developing controls (Borowiak et al, 2018). This indicates that the reduced dorsal-ventral functional connectivity in ASD could not be explained by differences in the performance IQ between the groups (Lawrence et al, 2008;Lawrence et al, 2015). This indicates that the reduced dorsal-ventral functional connectivity in ASD could not be explained by differences in the performance IQ between the groups (Lawrence et al, 2008;Lawrence et al, 2015).…”

“…In addition, both groups were pairwise-matched on the full-scale IQ and the performance IQ was not significantly associated with the dorsal-ventral functional connectivity. This indicates that the reduced dorsal-ventral functional connectivity in ASD could not be explained by differences in the performance IQ between the groups (Lawrence et al, 2008;Lawrence et al, 2015).…”

“…IQ was assessed using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III; Wechsler, 1997;German adapted version: Von Aster et al, 2006). IQ is important to consider when studying aspects of face processing, because it has been linked to recognition of emotion and identity from the face, at least in typically developing individuals (Lawrence et al, 2008;Lawrence, Campbell, & Skuse, 2015; but see Davis et al, 2011;Zhu et al, 2010). In addition, both groups showed comparable concentration performances (d2 test of attention; Brickenkamp, 2002; Table 1).…”

Emotion Recognition in Kindergarten Children

“…Compared to the preceding study, recognition accuracy was lower for almost all emotions with the exception of “happiness” and “anger.” This might be because the ability to recognize emotions is being modulated by other factors in the “pre-adolescence” developmental phase. In addition, Lawrence et al [20] investigated the development of facial emotion recognition over the age range from 6 to 16 years. They found with increasing age a linear improvement in children’s ability to recognize “happiness,” “surprise,” “fear,” and “disgust” in contrast to “sadness” and “anger” (near-adult levels of competence were observed in middle-childhood).…”

Teacher Evaluations of Executive Functioning in Schoolchildren Aged 9–12 and the Influence of Age, Sex, Level of Parental Education

“…Children become less impulsive over the years by learning to reflect on their own behavior before acting. This enables a child to choose for the best behavioral alternative (Diamond, 2013; Lawrence et al, 2015; Jolles, 2016; Leshem, 2016). Children learn to prioritize, and to anticipate on future events.…”