Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events
Researchers have long been interested in the relation between emotion understanding and theory of mind. This study investigates a cue to mental states that has rarely been investigated: the dynamics of valenced emotional expressions. When the valence of a character's facial expression was stabl...
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| Format: | Article |
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Wiley Blackwell
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112317 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0157-4925 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2981-8039 |
| _version_ | 1826208456038678528 |
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| author | Wu, Yang Schulz, Laura E |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Wu, Yang Schulz, Laura E |
| author_sort | Wu, Yang |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Researchers have long been interested in the relation between emotion understanding and theory of mind. This study investigates a cue to mental states that has rarely been investigated: the dynamics of valenced emotional expressions. When the valence of a character's facial expression was stable between an expected and observed outcome, children (N = 122; M = 5.0 years) recovered the character's desires but did not consistently recover her beliefs. When the valence changed, older but not younger children recovered both the characters' beliefs and desires. In contrast, adults jointly recovered agents' beliefs and desires in all conditions. These results suggest that the ability to infer mental states from the dynamics of emotional expressions develops gradually through early and middle childhood. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:05:56Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/112317 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:05:56Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Wiley Blackwell |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1123172022-10-01T19:12:07Z Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events Wu, Yang Schulz, Laura E Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Wu, Yang Schulz, Laura E Researchers have long been interested in the relation between emotion understanding and theory of mind. This study investigates a cue to mental states that has rarely been investigated: the dynamics of valenced emotional expressions. When the valence of a character's facial expression was stable between an expected and observed outcome, children (N = 122; M = 5.0 years) recovered the character's desires but did not consistently recover her beliefs. When the valence changed, older but not younger children recovered both the characters' beliefs and desires. In contrast, adults jointly recovered agents' beliefs and desires in all conditions. These results suggest that the ability to infer mental states from the dynamics of emotional expressions develops gradually through early and middle childhood. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (STC Award CCF-1231216) 2017-11-28T20:37:06Z 2017-11-28T20:37:06Z 2017-03 2017-11-20T15:41:55Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0009-3920 1467-8624 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112317 Wu, Yang, and Laura E. Schulz. “Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events.” Child Development, Mar. 2017. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0157-4925 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2981-8039 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12759 Child Development Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Wiley Blackwell Wiley |
| spellingShingle | Wu, Yang Schulz, Laura E Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events |
| title | Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events |
| title_full | Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events |
| title_fullStr | Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events |
| title_full_unstemmed | Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events |
| title_short | Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events |
| title_sort | inferring beliefs and desires from emotional reactions to anticipated and observed events |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112317 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0157-4925 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2981-8039 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT wuyang inferringbeliefsanddesiresfromemotionalreactionstoanticipatedandobservedevents AT schulzlaurae inferringbeliefsanddesiresfromemotionalreactionstoanticipatedandobservedevents |