Emotional face expressions recognition in childhood: developmental markers, age and sex effect

Romani-Sponchiado, Aline; Maia, Cintia Pacheco; Torres, Carol Nunes; Tavares, Inajá; Arteche, Adriane Xavier

doi:10.1007/s10339-022-01086-1

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…This result provides important information about the continued development of emotion processing across childhood; in particular, older children are more accurate at detecting emotional cues from faces, while younger children are more likely to misinterpret ambiguous facial signals as neutral expressions. In regard to possible sex differences, results from the current study do not support a female advantage in recognizing emotional faces, which has been found in some previous studies [ 22 ], supporting recent evidence that suggests an absence of sex differences [ 26 , 27 ]. Nevertheless, given the inconsistent findings in the existing literature, the possible emergence of a female advantage in facial expression recognition should be further investigated in light of the dynamic interactions between maturational and social factors [ 24 ].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

“…It is important to notice that sex is another important factor that may play a role in the development of emotion recognition skills. The existing literature reports inconclusive results regarding sex differences in recognizing emotional facial expressions in childhood, with some studies reporting a small but consistent female advantage [ 21 , 22 , 23 ] and others showing little differences between females and males during late childhood [ 24 ], or showing no significant sex effects [ 25 , 26 , 27 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Emotion Recognition in Preterm and Full-Term School-Age Children

Longa

Nosarti

Farroni

2022

IJERPH

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Children born preterm (<37 weeks’ gestation) show a specific vulnerability for socio-emotional difficulties, which may lead to an increased likelihood of developing behavioral and psychiatric problems in adolescence and adulthood. The accurate decoding of emotional signals from faces represents a fundamental prerequisite for early social interactions, allowing children to derive information about others’ feelings and intentions. The present study aims to explore possible differences between preterm and full-term children in the ability to detect emotional expressions, as well as possible relationships between this ability and socio-emotional skills and problem behaviors during everyday activities. We assessed 55 school-age children (n = 34 preterm and n = 21 full-term) with a cognitive battery that ensured comparable cognitive abilities between the two groups. Moreover, children were asked to identify emotional expressions from pictures of peers’ faces (Emotion Recognition Task). Finally, children’s emotional, social and behavioral outcomes were assessed with parent-reported questionnaires. The results revealed that preterm children were less accurate than full-term children in detecting positive emotional expressions and they showed poorer social and behavioral outcomes. Notably, correlational analyses showed a relationship between the ability to recognize emotional expressions and socio-emotional functioning. The present study highlights that early difficulties in decoding emotional signals from faces may be critically linked to emotional and behavioral regulation problems, with important implications for the development of social skills and effective interpersonal interactions.

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