PerCEIVED: Perceptions of children’s emotions in videos, evolving and dynamic task.

Abstract

Researchers have been studying emotion recognition skill for over 100 years (Feleky, 1914), yet technological advances continue to allow for the creation of better measures. Interest in consistent inaccuracies (sometimes described as bias) has also emerged recently. To support research in both emotion recognition skill and bias, we first describe all extant measures of emotion recognition with child actors that we have found, evaluating strengths and constraints of these measures. We then introduce a new measure of emotion understanding (Perceptions of Children's Emotions in Videos, Evolving and Dynamic task) that includes assessment of six emotions portrayed dynamically over rounds by 72 child actors, balancing child race and gender within each emotion, and certified by Facial Action Coding System coders. We provide participant accuracy and bias rates by round and within emotion, based on results from four studies (N = 477 adult participants), and report evidence for reliability over time, criterion and discriminant validity, and multidimensionality of emotion recognition from these studies. We conclude with potential uses of the measure in terms of assessing the accuracy and inaccuracies of participants, including opportunities for the study of developmental processes, individual differences, and confusions between various emotions.

Racialized emotion recognition accuracy and anger bias of children’s faces.

“…The neutrality, prototypically, and level of these expressions were validated by two FACS-certified coders (using the anatomically based FACS; Ekman, et al, 2002). A similar, briefer task with adults has demonstrated ample construct validity for both accuracy and anger bias in adults (Halberstadt et al, 2018); stability in skill level in this task is indicated by test-retesting 3 months later ( r [24] = .70, p < .001; Halberstadt, Cooke, Hagan, & Liu, 2020).…”

“…This computerized task (Halberstadt, Cooke, Hagan, & Liu, 2020) is comprised of short video clips of 72 children (Ages 9–13), M age = 11, evenly distributed by gender (boy, girl) and race (Black, White). The clips show the children expressing facially one of six basic emotions: happy, sad, angry, afraid, surprise, and disgust.…”

Emotional Schemas: Critical Elements of Educators’ Social and Emotional Competencies to Promote Student SEL

“…The study involved 43 fourth-and fifth-grade teachers and examined their beliefs concerning students' anger (i.e., useful versus harmful) within a school environment using two subscales of a 30-item self-report measure adapted from the parent emotional belief literature (Halberstadt et al, 2013). They also assessed educators' ability to identify anger expressions in children's faces during a dynamic emotion recognition task involving video clips (PerCEIVED Task; Halberstadt et al, 2021). The findings revealed that, even when accounting for factors such as age and gender, educators who held the belief that children's anger had utility and value within the school setting exhibited higher accuracy in recognizing anger expressions in children's faces.…”