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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.
Faces are of unrivaled significance to human social interactions. Not only do faces provide us with visual information that allows us to determine the sex, age, familiarity and identity of an individual, we also use faces to gather information about what other individuals might be thinking or feeling. Analysing and interpreting facial expressions of emotion is necessary to enable us to modify our social interactions appropriately. Over the decades since the 1970s, social and psychological research has established the universality of the six main facial expressions of emotion (
It has been suggested that, by 6 years of age, typically developing children are relatively accurate at discriminating several facial expressions of emotion (
A more recent study (
Looking directly at emotion recognition during late childhood (7–13 years), adolescence (14–18 years), and adulthood (25–57 years),
From the above studies, we see suggestions of improvements in facial emotion recognition during childhood and adolescence. However, the different methodologies and age groups used, together with the differing emotions included, make it difficult to comprehensively understand the quantitative and qualitative developments in emotion recognition during this period of life. The current study sets out to systematically assess recognition accuracy for the six basic emotional expressions throughout childhood and adolescence. The primary aim of the current study was to explore the developmental trajectory of explicit facial emotion recognition in a large sample of children and adolescents split into large year-band categories, using original photographs from the Ekman-Friesen Pictures of Facial Affect (
The Ekman-Friesen Pictures of Facial affect test (
In general, when emotion recognition is assessed in adult patients, the ability of a patient to recognize facial expressions is compared to standardized adult norms for such tests, but this is not possible for children since child norms do not exist. Although other tests have been developed in more recent years (including the use of morphed faces and those with cropped hairlines), very often in clinical and educational situations and for research with these groups these original Ekman faces are used as an assessment tool (
Several childhood neurodevelopmental disorders influence the ability to recognize facial expressions. There are difficulties recognizing facial expressions encountered by children with autism and Asperger syndrome (for example,
Is the ability to recognize facial expressions of emotions associated with IQ? For children with autistic spectrum disorders and for psychiatric control children both verbal memory and Performance IQ have been found to predict emotion recognition ability (
Both sexes are competent at recognizing facial expressions of emotion, with many studies finding that males and females perform at equivalent levels on a wide variety of emotion recognition tasks (
With respect to children specifically,
Given that recognition accuracy, even in young children, is relatively good, a question that needs addressing is whether there are qualitative changes in the development of facial expression recognition during childhood and adolescence and, if so, whether these changes themselves might influence recognition accuracy. In a very insightful review concerning the interplay between face recognition, adolescence and behavioral development, it is suggested that, as adolescents reorient away from their parents toward their peers, there is an increased drive for peer-acceptance and increased sensitivity to peer evaluation (
Is it possible that hormonal surges associated with puberty may influence the development of our ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion? There is evidence to suggest that hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle influence fear recognition accuracy in females (
The objectives of the current study were; firstly to assess the developmental trajectory of facial emotion recognition in school age children and to establish norms and developmental trends for these abilities; secondly, to ascertain whether general cognitive ability (IQ) correlates with overall emotion recognition accuracy; thirdly, to explore gender differences in these abilities; and finally, to assess whether pubertal development is related to emotion recognition accuracy.
Four hundred and seventy eight participants were recruited from six primary schools (age 6–11 years) and eight secondary schools (ages 11–16 years) within the London area of the UK. 20–25 males and 20–25 females were recruited within each 1-year age band. A full breakdown of gender and age group is given in
Emotion recognition % accuracy scores for the Ekman-Friesen test of Facial Affect according to age group and gender.
Age (Years, months) | Happy(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Surprised(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Fearful(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Sad(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Disgusted(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Angry(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
6,0–6,11 | Males ( |
83.33 (16.06) | 56.67 (33.19) | 39.68 (22.47) | 75.83 (15.01) | 30.00 (27.35) | 70.42 (24.40) |
Females ( |
95.60 (8.70) | 64.80 (33.31) | 40.40 (29.65) | 82.80 (18.15) | 34.80 (32.03) | 82.40 (17.86) | |
7,0–7,11 | Males ( |
90.53 (15.08) | 48.95 (36.65) | 50.47 (30.38) | 85.26 (16.11) | 24.21 (27.55) | 78.42 (17.08) |
Females ( |
95.00 (7.80) | 71.94 (32.58) | 50.00 (25.02) | 83.33 (13.41) | 33.38 (29.10) | 78.75 (19.41) | |
8,0–8,11 | Males ( |
92.63 (12.84) | 76.84 (27.70) | 46.84 (29.26) | 72.11 (19.03) | 39.47 (18.40) | 69.47 (20.94) |
Females ( |
98.40 (3.74) | 72.00 (24.66) | 50.22 (22.39) | 79.20 (18.01) | 42.40 (24.71) | 73.49 (20.48) | |
9,0–9,11 | Males ( |
96.09 (7.83) | 70.43 (34.44) | 53.43 (22.20) | 76.09 (16.99) | 40.00 (25.94) | 75.65 (13.08) |
Females ( |
96.76 (4.83) | 83.38 (16.30) | 54.00 (16.33) | 77.20 (13.70) | 56.40 (30.40) | 73.20 (19.30) | |
10,0–10,11 | Males ( |
97.83 (5.18) | 83.48 (10.71) | 49.86 (31.82) | 76.96 (20.10) | 42.37 (25.58) | 70.87 (15.35) |
Females ( |
96.80 (7.48) | 89.60 (12.41) | 52.62 (26.97) | 72.80 (15.42) | 62.00 (25.66) | 75.20 (17.59) | |
11,0–11,11 | Males ( |
92.96 (8.69) | 79.63 (18.70) | 65.56 (19.48) | 72.96 (19.38) | 52.59 (26.97) | 72.22 (20.06) |
Females ( |
96.25 (6.47) | 91.25 (15.69) | 55.83 (27.33) | 74.58 (15.03) | 67.82 (26.66) | 71.62 (15.17) | |
12,0–12,11 | Males ( |
96.40 (6.38) | 80.80 (19.56) | 55.20 (23.30) | 78.40 (16.75) | 61.60 (26.56) | 67.20 (20.11) |
Females ( |
99.41 (2.43) | 82.35 (12.51) | 64.31 (22.07) | 80.00 (10.61) | 61.18 (23.15) | 78.82 (15.76) | |
13,0–13,11 | Males ( |
96.80 (6.90) | 85.60 (13.25) | 56.80 (19.09) | 77.60 (17.86) | 61.20 (24.55) | 72.80 (16.96) |
Females ( |
94.62 (8.64) | 87.53 (14.86) | 62.63 (23.30) | 71.99 (13.51) | 73.23 (19.88) | 76.32 (17.07) | |
14,0–14,11 | Males ( |
99.05 (3.01) | 90.95 (11.36) | 59.74 (21.61) | 76.19 (13.22) | 74.76 (20.40) | 79.05 (17.86) |
Females ( |
96.32 (6.84) | 93.16 (10.03) | 68.95 (21.83) | 80.53 (16.15) | 82.63 (22.07) | 84.21 (11.70) | |
15,0–15,11 | Males ( |
94.67 (9.15) | 94.00 (7.37) | 56.00 (23.24) | 80.00 (14.64) | 77.33 (21.54) | 76.00 (15.02) |
Females ( |
96.67 (5.00) | 87.78 (14.81) | 71.11 (23.15) | 83.33 (10.00) | 71.11 (23.69) | 76.67 (15.00) | |
16,0–16,11 | Males ( |
97.50 (6.76) | 84.58 (19.51) | 75.42 (19.78) | 75.00 (19.78) | 75.42 (20.00) | 76.67 (14.04) |
Females ( |
99.00 (3.08) | 88.00 (11.96) | 77.50 (26.13) | 74.50 (16.69) | 84.50 (15.38) | 78.50 (16.31) |
The majority of the participants were White Caucasian (
At all ages, Vocabulary and Matrix reasoning
Information on pubertal status was available for a limited sub-set of the participants. The analysis looking at pubertal status as an IV was conducted on 173 participants over the age of 11 years.
A computerized version of the Ekman-Friesen Pictures of Facial affect test (
Two subtests, one Verbal and one Performance, were administered according to standardized procedures (
The PDS has been reported to be a reliable measure of pubertal development. Standardization of this self-report questionnaire suggested that correlations between interview ratings and questionnaire scores had a median correlation of 0.7 (
The data were inspected for outliers. One participant (an 8 year old boy) was excluded on the basis that his recognition accuracy for the Pictures of Facial Affect was at chance level (11.67%) and much lower than the next lowest score of 40% accuracy (which was achieved by three individuals with a further eight individuals achieving accuracy of between 41 and 45%).
Bivariate Pearson correlations were calculated for each respondent’s total emotion recognition score and their IQ. These revealed a significant relationship between emotion recognition and IQ (
Scores for the individual facial expressions were submitted to a repeated measures ANOVA. Percentage recognition accuracy scores for each emotion (happy, surprised, fearful, sad, disgusted, and angry) were entered as 6 levels of the repeated measure, with the 11 levels of age group (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 years) and two levels of gender (male/female) as the between-subject factors and IQ as the covariate. There were significant main effects of gender [F(1,451) = 24.05,
Recognition accuracy for each emotion was then examined using separate univariate ANOVAs to identify the source of the interactions between emotion, age group and gender. Each emotion was entered separately as the dependent variable, with age group and gender as the fixed factors and IQ as the covariate. Age group was, in each instance, subjected to polynomial contrasts in order to identify any age trends in recognition accuracy. The different age trends for each of the individual emotions, by gender, have been plotted in
Happy faces were accurately named by children of all ages. At 6 years of age children could accurately name 92% of happy faces. However, there was a significant main effect of age [
There was a significant main effect of age for the recognition accuracy of surprised faces [
There was a significant main effect of age on the recognition accuracy of fearful faces [
Young children were accurate at recognizing sad facial expressions. There was no effect of either age group or gender on the ability to recognize sad faces, and the interaction between these factors was non-significant. On independent samples
There was a significant main effect of age for the recognition of disgust [
There was no effect of age on the recognition of angry facial expressions. Independent samples
Emotion recognition accuracy was analyzed for respondents who were classified as being in the stages of mid-puberty or advanced-puberty. A multivariate analysis of covariance was performed with each of the six emotions entered as dependent variables, the two levels of pubertal development as the fixed factor, and gender, age group and IQ as covariates. Mean recognition accuracy for each of the emotions according to pubertal stage is shown in
Emotion recognition (% accuracy) scores for the Ekman-Friesen test of Facial Affect according to pubertal stage and gender.
Pubertal development | Happy(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Surprised(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Fearful(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Sad(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Disgusted(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | Angry(% accuracy)Mean (SD) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mid-pubertal | Males ( |
95.65 (7.20) | 86.02 (14.92) | 60.10 (21.00) | 73.39 (15.84) | 64.57 (24.65) | 74.57 (19.06) |
Females ( |
96.58 (7.54) | 85.30 (16.75) | 60.00 (26.75) | 74.73 (13.38) | 63.30 (23.58) | 71.07 (18.00) | |
Advanced-pubertal | Males ( |
98.22 (5.35) | 87.85 (15.82) | 64.22 (21.58) | 78.89 (17.74) | 76.44 (16.81) | 77.56 (16.12) |
Females ( |
97.23 (5.40) | 89.36 (13.09) | 71.70 (21.09) | 78.09 (14.69) | 80.00 (19.67) | 82.77 (11.74) |
A summary of the main effects for age, gender, and puberty is shown in
Overview table showing the main effects reported in this study for the individual emotions.
Significant main effects of… | Happy | Surprised | Fearful | Sad | Disgusted | Angry |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | × | ✓ | × |
Gender | ✓ | ✓ | × | × | ✓ | ✓ |
Puberty | × | × | × | × | ✓ | ✓ |
This study establishes childhood norms for the recognition of the six basic facial expressions using the Ekman-Friesen Pictures of Facial Affect (
Most previous studies have focused on a sub-set of these emotions (
Previous research has suggested children may have disproportionate difficulties recognizing particular facial expressions. It has been suggested that surprise, fear, anger and disgust may present disproportionate problems (
More research is needed to understand the differences between emotions and why such contrasting developmental trajectories exist. The recognition of some emotions relies more on information from the upper-face (eyes) or the lower face (mouth) or the configuration of the whole face (
Why might it be the case that we acquire accuracy in labeling certain emotions (such as sadness, happiness, and anger) at a much younger age than we do for other emotions (notably; fear, surprise, and disgust)? These findings would seem to be consistent with a theory put forward by
Another possible explanation for age-sensitive profiles for surprise and disgust comes from research in autism.
Our study highlights the significant association between emotion recognition skills and general cognitive ability throughout childhood and adolescence, as has been previously demonstrated for facial recognition memory (
Previous research exploring sex differences in recognition accuracy for facial expressions of emotion has argued that females are more accurate decoders of emotional expressions than males (
The small gender differences identified may reflect sexually dimorphic processing of facial expressions. A study by our group has suggested that men and women may call upon different functional processes for face and emotion recognition (
Although no age by gender interactions were statistically significant in our study, other studies suggest that gender differences decrease with age.
We found that anger and disgust were better recognized by respondents classified as late-pubertal compared with those who were mid-pubertal (age partialled out). These findings are similar to those reported by
Due to insufficient numbers within the pre- and early-puberty groups, it was not possible to analyze the developmental trend for these recognition skills throughout the full range of the pubertal period. Future studies may benefit from collecting data across these stages of puberty in order to explore whether the linear improvement noted in our current study is preceded by any ‘dip’ in abilities in early puberty that may mirror the decline (or plateau) and subsequent improvement in facial recognition memory that has been observed in some (
The Ekman faces task uses monochrome full-face photographs of adults taken during the 1970s. Even though emotions have been shown to be culturally consistent and universal (
There are limitations to using the PDS, in that it relies on self-report, which may be inaccurate. Furthermore, the sensitive nature of the questions asked render it problematic to obtain ethical permission to administer, especially in younger children who are more likely to be pre-pubertal. For this reason, we have a very limited number of pre-pubertal children within our study, which makes it difficult to fully explore the development trend across all the stages of puberty. A more illuminating approach could be to adopt direct saliva testing of hormonal levels which may give, not only a more valid measurement of pubertal stage, but also be ethically acceptable to use across the entire age span of childhood and adolescence.
There is burgeoning interest in the apparent deficits associated with the recognition of facial expressions among children with pervasive developmental disorders (
If changing face and emotion recognition abilities serve as good model to understand adolescent development more generally (as suggested by
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
This research was supported by The National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR) and the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation. Thanks to Tim Cole for providing advice on sample size for this study. Many thanks to Paul Ekman for providing the stimuli for this study. Data collection was assisted by Deborah Bernstein, Sarah Brand, David Spektor, and William Mandy. Thanks to Lubna Ahmed for her comments on a revision of the manuscript. We thank the schools involved for their remarkable support in conducting the study. Finally, we especially thank all the participants of our investigation for their time, which was generously and enthusiastically given.