Developmental changes in infants' processing of happy and angry facial expressions: a neurobehavioral study.
Event-related brain potentials were measured in 7- and 12-month-old infants to examine the development of processing happy and angry facial expressions. In 7-month-olds a larger negativity to happy faces was observed at frontal, central, temporal and parietal sites (Experiment 1), whereas 12-month-olds showed a larger negativity to angry faces at occipital sites (Experiment 2). These data suggest that processing of these facial expressions undergoes development between 7 and 12 months: while 7-month-olds exhibit heightened sensitivity to happy faces, 12-month-olds resemble adults in their heightened sensitivity to angry faces. In Experiment 3 infants' visual preference was assessed behaviorally, revealing that the differences in ERPs observed at 7 and 12 months do not simply reflect differences in visual preference.
Grossmann
Tobias
T
Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. t.grossmann@bbk.ac.uk
Striano
Tricia
T
Friederici
Angela D
AD
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000786:Anger; D001288:Attention; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010781:Photography; D011930:Reaction Time; D012938:Social Perception