As babies grow, they are always watching and learning from your face-to-face interactions. By the end of the first year, infants understand what facial expression goes with what emotion (for example, smiles mean that you are happy). But before they can learn the meaning of emotional expressions, their visual system must first be able to detect an emotional expression is present. We are studying how quickly babies detect emotional expressions, something they first must be able to do before understanding the difference between emotional expressions. Additionally, we are seeing if rapid detection of emotion information (a perceptual process) is related to better social outcomes at 18 months of age.

In a research appointment in our lab, an infant sits on their parent's lap while they watch emotional facial expressions presented very rapidly (some subliminally) on a TV screen. We have a special camera that records exactly where they are looking on the screen. We look at whether their eyes are automatically drawn to the location of an emotional compared to a neutral face. Currently, we are looking for parents with infants 7 months old or younger to participate in a one-time research appointment that takes only 30 minutes to complete. Most of the time is spent explaining the consent form and filling out a questionnaire, while the time the child spends in the room with the TV is only about 5 minutes.