Developmental changes in facial expression recognition in Japanese school-age children

Purpose : Facial expressions hold abundant information and play a central part in communication. In daily life, we must construct amicable interpersonal relationships by communicating through verbal and nonverbal behaviors. While school-age is a period of rapid social growth, few studies exist that study developmental changes in facial expression recognition during this age. This study investigated developmental changes in facial expression recognition by examining observers’ gaze on others’ expressions. Subjects : 87 school-age children from first to sixth grade (41 boys, 46 girls). Method : The Tobii T60 Eye-tracker(Tobii Technologies, Sweden) was used to gauge eye movement during a task of matching pre-instructed emotion words and facial expressions images (neutral, angry, happy, surprised, sad, disgusted) presented on a monitor fixed at a distance of 50 cm. Results : In the task of matching the six facial expression images and emotion words, the mid- and higher-grade children answered more accurately than the lower-grade children in matching four expressions, excluding neutral and happy. For fixation time and fixation count, the lower-grade children scored lower than other grade children, gazing on all facial expressions significantly fewer times and for shorter periods. Conclusion : It is guessed that the stage from lower grades to middle grades is a turning point in facial recognition.