According to a new study from Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, infants age 18 months and older can tell if a person is faking an emotion in a certain context.
According to a new study from Concordia University in Portland, Oregon, infants age 18 months and older can tell if a person is faking an emotion in a certain context.
To test this, researchers looked at a study subject group of 92 babies from 15 to 18 months old, and observed their reactions while an actor played out several scenarios with appropriate and inappropriate emotional responses.
For example, the actor pretended to be in pain when they hurt their finger, or looked sad when they received a nice toy.
Subjects who were 15 months old didn’t show any significant difference when the actor displayed inappropriate emotional responses, but the 18 month old subjects could tell when the emotional response didn’t match the situation.
One of the researchers, Sabrina Chiarella said: “The ability to detect sadness and then react immediately has an evolutionary implication. However, to function effectively in the social world, children need to develop the ability to understand others' behaviors by inferring what is going on internally for those around them.”
Now the researchers are investigating whether or not babies will help or learn from someone that appears to be emotionally inconsistent.
