GENERALIZED DISCRIMINATION OF POSITIVE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS BY 7-MONTH-OLD AND 10-MONTH-OLD INFANTS

The ability of 7‐ and 10‐month‐old infants to generalize their discrimination of facial expressions lacking featural consistency was investigated in a series of 4 experiments. Infants were habituated to models posing either prototypically positive displays (e.g., happy expressions) or positive expression blends (e.g., mock surprise). They were then tested for their ability to recognize a positive expression on the face of a novel model and to discriminate positive and negative facial expression. Only in Experiment 1, in which infants were familiarized to a mix of happy and surprised facial expressions, did 10‐month‐olds demonstrate generalized discrimination of positive affect. When positive blends or happy expressions alone served as familiarization stimuli, both 7‐ and 10‐month‐old infants failed to dishabituate to a change in affective tone. 7‐month‐olds, in particular, showed consistent recovery of looking to the inroduction of novel models. The pattern of results suggests that it is not until sometime after 7 months of age that dependence on the presence of expression‐specific features for affect recognition and discrimination diminishes. By 10 months of age, however, infants are beginning to recognize the affective similarity of familiar positive facial expressions. Copyright © 1991, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved