Effects of sex on the attentional orientation bias toward emotional expressions in children: An eye-tracking study.

Abstract

Objective: Emotional facial expressions attract attention automatically, but because some emotions provide information that is more important for social adaptation than others, it is plausible to suggest that differences in attentional orientation toward them may exist. The objective of this research was to study the attentional orientation toward facial expressions depending on: (a) the sex of the child; (b) the sex of the model; and (c) its relationship with children’s age. Method: A total of 64 children (6–12 years) participated. Eye movements were tracked while children observed pairs of facial expressions of happiness, sadness, and anger. Results: Findings showed a higher number of first fixations toward happiness and anger than sadness regardless of the sex of the children; a higher number of first fixations toward happiness than anger expressions in women’s faces, and the opposite in men’s faces. Furthermore, the age of the children successfully predicted: the increase in the number of first fixations toward sadness and its duration toward emotions expressed by women and; the decrease of the total observation time after the first fixation toward men’s emotions only in boys. Conclusions: Children’s attention is more automatically attracted to women’s happiness and men’s anger expressions. The time spent looking at women’s faces increases with age only in boys. On the contrary, boys develop attentional avoidance for men’s faces, particularly to anger, with increasing age. Since gaze is highly relevant in social interaction, the more direct-gaze attention to women’s faces may facilitate child/women compared to child/men relationships.