"Finding an Emotional Face" Revisited: Differences in Own-Age Bias and the Happiness Superiority Effect in Children and Young Adults

Age-dependent changes in the anger superiority effect: Evidence from a visual search task

The perception of threatening facial expressions is a critical skill necessary for detecting the emotional states of others and responding appropriately. The anger superiority effect hypothesis suggests that individuals are better at processing and identifying angry faces compared with other nonthreatening facial expressions. In adults, the anger superiority effect is present even after controlling for the bottom-up visual saliency, and when ecologically valid stimuli are used. However, it is as yet unclear whether this effect is present in children. To fill this gap, we tested the anger superiority effect in children ages 6-14 years in a visual search task by using emotional dynamic stimuli and equating the visual salience of target and distractors. The results suggest that in childhood, the angry superiority effect consists of improved accuracy in detecting angry faces, while in adolescence, the ability to discriminate angry faces undergoes further development, enabling faster and more accurate threat detection.

Fearful apes, happy apes: Is fearfulness associated with uniquely human cooperation?

In the fearful ape hypothesis, Grossmann argues that heightened fearfulness increases human-unique cooperation. We suggest that this conclusion, however, may be premature. In particular, we question Grossmann's singling out of fear as the affective trait that enhances cooperative care. Additionally, we problematize the extent to which heightened fearfulness in humans, and its association with human-unique cooperation, are supported empirically.

Facial Emotion Recognition Deficit in Children with Moderate/Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Although previous studies have reported a facial expression classification deficit among adults with SDB, we do not know whether these findings can be generalized to children. In our study, children with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) were divided into three groups: primary snoring (n = 51), mild obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) (n = 39), and moderate/severe OSA (n = 26). All participants, including 20 healthy controls, underwent an overnight polysomnography recording and the Emotional Expression Recognition Task. Psychosocial problems were evaluated using the parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). There was a borderline significant interaction between expression category and group on reaction times. Further analysis revealed that positive classification advantage (PCA) disappeared in the moderate/severe OSA group, whereas it persisted in the control, primary snoring, and mild OSA groups. Emotional symptoms were positively correlated with OAHI. In both the happy and sad conditions, RT was negatively related to age and body mass index (BMI) but was independent of the obstructive apnea-hypopnea index (OAHI), arterial oxygen (SaO₂) and total sleep time. The accuracy of identifying a sad expression was negatively related to conduct problems. Children with moderate/severe OSA exhibited dysfunction in facial expression categorization, which could potentially affect social communication ability.

The age bias in labeling facial expressions in children: Effects of intensity and expression

Emotion reasoning, including labeling of facial expressions, is an important building block for a child's social development. This study investigated age biases in labeling facial expressions in children and adults, focusing on the influence of intensity and expression on age bias. Children (5 to 14 years old; N = 152) and adults (19 to 25 years old; N = 30) labeled happiness, disgust or sadness at five intensity levels (0%; 25%; 50%; 75%; and 100%) in facial images of children and adults. Sensitivity was computed for each of the expression-intensity combinations, separately for the child and adult faces. Results show that children and adults have an age bias at low levels of intensity (25%). In the case of sadness, children have an age bias for all intensities. Thus, the impact of the age of the face seems largest for expressions which might be most difficult to recognise. Moreover, both adults and children label most expressions best in adult rather than child faces, leading to an other-age bias in children and an own-age bias in adults. Overall, these findings reveal that both children and adults exhibit an age bias in labeling subtle facial expressions of emotions.

Volume of the right supramarginal gyrus is associated with a maintenance of emotion recognition ability

Emotion recognition is known to change with age, but associations between the change and brain atrophy are not well understood. In the current study atrophied brain regions associated with emotion recognition were investigated in elderly and younger participants. Group comparison showed no difference in emotion recognition score, while the score was associated with years of education, not age. We measured the gray matter volume of 18 regions of interest including the bilateral precuneus, supramarginal gyrus, orbital gyrus, straight gyrus, superior temporal sulcus, inferior frontal gyrus, insular cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus, which have been associated with social function and emotion recognition. Brain reductions were observed in elderly group except left inferior frontal gyrus, left straight gyrus, right orbital gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right supramarginal gyrus. Path analysis was performed using the following variables: age, years of education, emotion recognition score, and the 5 regions that were not different between the groups. The analysis revealed that years of education were associated with volumes of the right orbital gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right supramarginal gyrus. Furthermore, the right supramarginal gyrus volume was associated with the emotion recognition score. These results suggest that the amount of education received contributes to maintain the right supramarginal gyrus volume, and indirectly affects emotion recognition ability.