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Face perception
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===Ability to detect emotion in the face=== [[File:Emotions according to the Atlas of Personality, Emotion and Behaviour.svg|alt=Lineart depicting various emotions.|thumb|Examples of various emotions]] At around seven months of age, infants show the ability to discern faces by emotion. However, whether they have fully developed [[emotion recognition]] is unclear. Discerning visual differences in facial expressions is different to understanding the [[valence (psychology)|valence]] of a particular emotion. * Seven-month-olds seem capable of associating emotional prosodies with facial expressions. When presented with a happy or angry face, followed by an emotionally neutral word read in a happy or angry tone, their [[event-related potential]]s follow different patterns. Happy faces followed by angry vocal tones produce more changes than the other incongruous pairing, while there was no such difference between happy and angry congruous pairings. The greater reaction implies that infants held greater expectations of a happy vocal tone after seeing a happy face than an angry tone following an angry face.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = Crossmodal integration of emotional information from face and voice in the infant brain|journal = [[Developmental Science]]|volume = 9|issue = 3|pages = 309–315|date=May 2006|doi = 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00494.x|pmid = 16669802|last2 = Striano|last3 = Friederici|author1 = Tobias Grossmann|s2cid = 41871753|author-link1 = Tobias Grossmann|doi-access = free}}</ref> * By the age of seven months, children are able to recognize an angry or fearful facial expression, perhaps because of the [[threat]]-salient nature of the emotion. Despite this ability, newborns are not yet aware of the emotional content encoded within facial expressions.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Farroni|first1=Teresa|last2=Menon|first2=Enrica|last3=Rigato|first3=Silvia|last4=Johnson|first4=Mark H.|title=The perception of facial expressions in newborns|journal=European Journal of Developmental Psychology|date=March 2007|volume=4|issue=1|pages=2–13|doi=10.1080/17405620601046832|pmid=20228970|pmc=2836746 }}</ref> * Infants can comprehend facial expressions as [[social cues]] representing the feelings of other people before they are a year old. Seven-month-old infants show greater negative central components to angry faces that are looking directly at them than elsewhere, although the gaze of fearful faces produces no difference. In addition, two [[event-related potential]]s in the posterior part of the brain are differently aroused by the two negative expressions tested. These results indicate that infants at this age can partially understand the higher level of threat from [[anger]] directed at them.<ref name="Stefanie Hoehl & Tricia Striano 2008 1752–1760" /> They also showed activity in the occipital areas.<ref name="Stefanie Hoehl & Tricia Striano 2008 1752–1760"> {{Cite journal|author = [[Stefanie Hoehl]] & [[Tricia Striano]]|title = Neural processing of eye gaze and threat-related emotional facial expressions in infancy|journal = [[Child Development (journal)|Child Development]]|volume = 79|issue = 6|pages = 1752–60|date=November–December 2008|doi = 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01223.x|pmid = 19037947|last2 = Striano|s2cid = 766343 }} </ref> * Five-month-olds, when presented with an image of a [[fearful]] expression and a [[Happiness|happy]] expression, exhibit similar [[event-related potential]]s for both. However, when seven-month-olds are given the same treatment, they focus more on the fearful face. This result indicates increased cognitive focus toward fear that reflects the threat-salient nature of the emotion.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Peltola|first1=Mikko J.|last2=Leppänen|first2=Jukka M.|last3=Mäki|first3=Silja|last4=Hietanen|first4=Jari K.|title=Emergence of enhanced attention to fearful faces between 5 and 7 months of age|journal=Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience|date=1 June 2009|volume=4|issue=2|pages=134–142|doi=10.1093/scan/nsn046|pmid=19174536|pmc=2686224 }}</ref> Seven-month-olds regard happy and [[sadness|sad]] faces as distinct emotive categories.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite journal|title = Categorical representation of facial expressions in the infant brain|journal = [[Infancy (journal)|Infancy]]|volume = 14|issue = 3|pages = 346–362|date=May 2009|doi = 10.1080/15250000902839393|pmid = 20953267|last1 = Leppanen|first1 = Jukka|last2 = Richmond|first2 = Jenny|last3 = Vogel-Farley|first3 = Vanessa|last4 = Moulson|first4 = Margaret|last5 = Nelson|first5 = Charles|pmc = 2954432}}</ref> * By seven months, infants are able to use facial expressions to understand others' behavior. Seven-month-olds look to use facial cues to understand the motives of other people in ambiguous situations, as shown in a study where infants watched the experimenter's face longer if the experimenter took a toy from them and maintained a neutral expression, as opposed to if the experimenter made a happy expression.<ref>{{Cite journal|author = [[Tricia Striano]] & [[Amrisha Vaish]]|title = Seven- to 9-month-old infants use facial expressions to interpret others' actions|journal = [[British Journal of Developmental Psychology]]|volume = 24|pages = 753–760|year = 2010|doi = 10.1348/026151005X70319|issue = 4|last2 = Vaish|s2cid = 145375636 }}</ref> When infants are exposed to faces, it varies depending on factors including facial expression and eye gaze direction.<ref name="ReferenceA"/><ref name="Stefanie Hoehl & Tricia Striano 2008 1752–1760"/> * Emotions likely play a large role in our social interactions. The perception of a positive or [[negative emotion]] on a face affects the way that an individual perceives and processes that face. A face that is perceived to have a negative emotion is processed in a less holistic manner than a face displaying a positive emotion.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Curby|first=K.M.|author2=Johnson, K.J.|author3=Tyson A.|title=Face to face with emotion: Holistic face processing is modulated by emotional state|journal=Cognition and Emotion|year= 2012|volume= 26|issue= 1|pages= 93–102|doi= 10.1080/02699931.2011.555752|pmid= 21557121|s2cid=26475009}}</ref> * While seven-month-olds have been found to focus more on fearful faces, a study found that "happy expressions elicit enhanced sympathetic arousal in infants" both when facial expressions were presented subliminally and in a way that the infants were consciously aware of the stimulus.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Jessen|first1=Sarah|last2=Altvater-Mackensen|first2=Nicole|last3=Grossmann|first3=Tobias|date=1 May 2016|title=Pupillary responses reveal infants' discrimination of facial emotions independent of conscious perception|journal=Cognition|volume=150|pages=163–9|doi=10.1016/j.cognition.2016.02.010|pmid=26896901|s2cid=1096220}}</ref> Conscious awareness of a stimulus is not connected to an infant's reaction.<ref name=":0" />
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