Infants' Perception of Emotion From Body Movements

Abstract

Adults recognize emotions conveyed by bodies with comparable accuracy to facial emotions. However, no prior study has explored infants' perception of body emotions. In Experiment 1, 6.5-month-olds (n = 32) preferred happy over neutral actions of actors with covered faces in upright but not inverted silent videos. In Experiment 2, infants (n = 32) matched happy and angry videos to corresponding vocalizations when the videos were upright but not when they were inverted. Experiment 3 (n = 16) demonstrated that infants' performance in Experiment 2 was not driven by information from the covered face and head. Thus, young infants are sensitive to emotions conveyed by bodies and match them to affective vocalizations, indicating sophisticated emotion processing capabilities early in life.