The role of context in preschoolers' judgments of emotion in art

Journal/Book: Brit J Develop Psychol. 2000; 18: St Andrews House, 48 Princess Rd East, Leicester Le1 7Dr, Leics, England. British Psychological Soc. 465-474.

Abstract: Preschool aged children (3 and 5 years) were asked to judge the emotion expressed in museum art under two situations; one where they observed an adult conspicuously make judgments of the emotion portrayed in paintings and a second where they were not exposed co adult judgments. In the experimental condition, children were presented with five paintings (four portraying a target emotion and one an alternate emotion) and watched as an adult chose three paintings char expressed one of four target emotions (happy, sad, excited or calm). Children were asked to pick the fourth from the remaining pair of paintings. In the control condition, children were asked to choose the painting portraying the target emotion from the pair without watching an adult make choices. All stimuli had been previously rated by artists to be good exemplars of each of the emotion categories. The results indicated that 3-year-olds were at chance in the control condition, but matched art to emotion in a manner chat: was consistent with artists' norms in the experimental condition. Five-year-olds showed better than chance performance in the control condition, and even higher levels of performance in the experimental condition. These findings suggest that children's judgments of expressiveness in art may be facilitated by social interaction with others who take an aesthetic stance toward paintings.

Note: Article Callaghan TC, St Francis Xavier Univ, Dept Psychol, POB 5000, Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5, CANADA

Keyword(s): FACIAL EXPRESSIONS; CHILDRENS

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