title: Categorical perception along the happy-angry and happy-sad continua in the first year of life.
abstract: The current study investigated 6-, 9- and 12-month old infants' ability to categorically perceive facial emotional expressions depicting faces from two continua: happy-sad and happy-angry. In a between-subject design, infants were tested on their ability to discriminate faces that were between-category (across the category boundary) or within-category (within emotion category). Results suggest that 9- and 12 month-olds can discriminate between but not within categories, for the happy-angry continuum. Infants could not discriminate between cross-boundary facial expressions in the happy-sad continuum at any age. We suggest a functional account; categorical perception may develop in conjunction with the emotion's relevance to the infant.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour, 1280 Main Street West, Psychology Building-Rm219, McMaster, Hamilton, ON, Canada L8S4L8. Electronic address: leev9@mcmaster.ca.
authors.forename: Vivian
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour, 1280 Main Street West, Psychology Building-Rm219, McMaster, Hamilton, ON, Canada L8S4L8.
authors.forename: Jenna L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Cheal
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour, 1280 Main Street West, Psychology Building-Rm219, McMaster, Hamilton, ON, Canada L8S4L8.
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Rutherford
mesh_terms: D000786:Anger; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male
keywords: Categorical perception; Categorization; Emotion perception; Faces