Lecture 5

Question 1

Ganchrow study

Answer 1

23 infants given taste stimuli hours after birth

1. neutral
2. sweet
3. bitter

characteristic facial expressions of displeasure and pleasure, varying with stimulus intensity - no reaction to neutral stimuli

blind observers can identify facial display

• 5 studies to investigate 1-9 month old infants’ ability to produce identifiable emotion expressions
• filmed babies in various activities and showed still images of facial expressions to
  1. judges trained in microanalytic coding systems
  2. untrained participants

Question 2

Izard study (1995)

Answer 2

• both groups could reliably identify facial expression of emotional states
• untrained participants recognition rates
  joy 81%
  surprise 69%
  fear 52%
  anger 41%
  sadness 72%
  interest 67%
  contempt 44%
  disgust 37%

trained judges achieved higher rates

Question 3

limitation of Izard study

Answer 3

did these examples just happen to resemble certain adult facial expressions?
- social smiles emerge 6-12 weeks

• different situations elicit different types of smiles
• Messinger and Fogel 2007

Question 4

audience effect

Answer 4

infants purposefully look towards mother

mothers attentive behaviour modulates infant smile but not

• smiling at toys
• playtime and quality of play

infant is aware of when it is being paid attention

Question 5

Bushnell (2001)

Answer 5

little exposure required for newborn infants to develop preferences to their mother’s face to that of a stranger

• 2-7 hour old infants were observed for 72 hours
• mother/ stranger discrimination task was carried out at 72 hours

Question 6

Haviland & Lelwica (1987)

Answer 6

asked mother’s to display 3 emotions to their 1-week old babies (happy, sad or angry)
- facial expressions were rated similarly for expressiveness and animation

• infants discriminated each meaning (expression)
• infants express and recognise expressions

Question 7

social referencing

Answer 7

• strong test of infant’s sensitivity to meaning of emotional information
• adult expresses an emotional stance toward an object or event but does not communicate directly with infant

Question 8

the visual cliff

Answer 8

• 74% of infants crossed when mother expressed joy or interest
• infants did not cross deep side when mother showed fear or anger (0% & 11%)
• few infants reference mother in absence of depth
• those who did while mother posed fear, crossed anyway