The development of facial emotion recognition: The role of configural information

The development of children’s ability to recognize facial emotions and the role of configural informationin this development were investigated. In the study, 100 5-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds and 26 adultsneeded to recognize the emotion displayed by upright and upside-down faces. The same participantsneeded to recognize the emotion displayed by the top half of an upright or upside-down face that was orwas not aligned with a bottom half that displayed another emotion. The results showed that the ability torecognize facial emotion develops with age, with a developmental course that depends on the emotion tobe recognized. Moreover, children at all ages and adults exhibited both an inversion effect and a compositeeffect, suggesting that children rely on configural information to recognize facial emotions