Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Infants' sensitivity to the congruence of others' emotions and actions
AU - Hepach, Robert
AU - Westermann, Gert
PY - 2013/5
Y1 - 2013/5
N2 - As humans, we are attuned to the moods and emotions of others. This understanding of emotions enables us to interpret other people’s actions on the basis of their emotional displays. However, the development of this capacity is not well understood. Here we show a developmental pattern in 10- and 14-month-old infants’ sensitivity to others’ emotions and actions. Infants were shown video clips in which happy or angry actors performed a positive action (patting a toy tiger) or a negative action (thumping the toy tiger). Only 14-month-olds, but not 10-month-olds, showed selectively greater sympathetic activity (i.e., pupil dilation) both when an angry actor performed the positive action and when a happy actor performed the negative action, in contrast to the actors performing the actions congruent with their displayed emotions. These results suggest that at the beginning of the second year of life, infants become sensitive to the congruence of other people’s emotions and actions, indicating an emerging abstract concept of emotions during infancy. The results are discussed in light of previous research on emotion understanding during infancy.
AB - As humans, we are attuned to the moods and emotions of others. This understanding of emotions enables us to interpret other people’s actions on the basis of their emotional displays. However, the development of this capacity is not well understood. Here we show a developmental pattern in 10- and 14-month-old infants’ sensitivity to others’ emotions and actions. Infants were shown video clips in which happy or angry actors performed a positive action (patting a toy tiger) or a negative action (thumping the toy tiger). Only 14-month-olds, but not 10-month-olds, showed selectively greater sympathetic activity (i.e., pupil dilation) both when an angry actor performed the positive action and when a happy actor performed the negative action, in contrast to the actors performing the actions congruent with their displayed emotions. These results suggest that at the beginning of the second year of life, infants become sensitive to the congruence of other people’s emotions and actions, indicating an emerging abstract concept of emotions during infancy. The results are discussed in light of previous research on emotion understanding during infancy.
KW - Infancy
KW - Social cognition
KW - Emotion processing
KW - Pupil dilation
KW - Generalized linear mixed models
KW - Action understanding
U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.12.013
DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.12.013
M3 - Journal article
VL - 115
SP - 16
EP - 29
JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
SN - 0022-0965
IS - 1
ER -