A happy story: Developmental changes in children’s sensitivity to facial expressions of varying intensities

Using 20 levels of intensity, we measured children's thresholds to discriminate the six basic emotional expressions from neutral and their misidentification rates. Combined with the results of a previous study using the same method (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102 (2009) 503-521), the results indicate that by 5 years of age, children are adult-like, or nearly adult-like, for happy expressions on all measures. Children's …