Recognizing basic emotions: Developmental patterns in children aged 5 to 10 years

Emotions are among the behavioral strategies that favor social interaction; they act as fast response mechanisms that carry information both for the individual expressing them and for the individual perceiving them. In this study, we aimed to understand the development of emotion recognition in childhood. A total of 153 children (boys and girls) participated, divided into three age groups (5 to 6, 7 to 8 and 9 to 10 years old). We assessed emotion recognition with a test comprising three pictures of individuals expressing each of the six basic emotions, and each child then identified the emotion expressed in each picture. Age influenced emotion recognition, whereas sex did not. Our analysis supports the idea that emotion recognition improves with social interaction and experience as individuals mature.