Return to search

A Facial Expression of Pax: Revisiting Preschoolers' "Recognition" of Expressions

Thesis advisor: James A. Russell / Prior research showing that children recognize emotional expressions has used a choice-from-array style task; for example, children are asked to find the fear face in an array of several expressions. However, these choice-from-array tasks allow for the use of a process of elimination strategy in which children could select an expression they are unfamiliar with when presented a label that does not apply to other expressions in the array. Across six studies (N = 144), 80% of 2- to 4-year-olds selected a novel expression when presented a target label and performed similarly when the label was novel (such as <italic>pax</italic>) or familiar (such as <italic>fear</italic>). In addition, 46% of children went on to freely label the expression with the target label in a subsequent task. These data are the first to show that children extend the process of elimination strategy to facial expressions and also call into question the findings of prior choice-from-array studies. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_102028
Date January 2011
CreatorsNelson, Nicole L.
PublisherBoston College
Source SetsBoston College
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, thesis
Formatelectronic, application/pdf
RightsCopyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.

Page generated in 0.0015 seconds