TY - JOUR

T1 - Young children's developing ability to integrate gestural and emotional cues

AU - Kachel, Gregor

AU - Hardecker, David J.K.

AU - Bohn, Manuel

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Anja Ibes for data collection, Jana Jurkat for administrative support, Jana Mahler for reliability coding, Sylvio Tüpke for the photographs, and Linda Oña for helping with the FACS coding. We are grateful to Michael Tomasello for his support throughout the study. Finally, we thank all the children and their parents for participating. Manuel Bohn was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant (749229). Funding Information: We thank Anja Ibes for data collection, Jana Jurkat for administrative support, Jana Mahler for reliability coding, Sylvio Tüpke for the photographs, and Linda Oña for helping with the FACS coding. We are grateful to Michael Tomasello for his support throughout the study. Finally, we thank all the children and their parents for participating. Manuel Bohn was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant ( 749229 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Elsevier Inc.

PY - 2021/1/1

Y1 - 2021/1/1

N2 - In three studies, children aged 22 to 46 months (N = 180) needed to integrate pointing gestures or gaze cues with positive and negative facial expressions to succeed in an object-choice task. Finding a toy required children to either choose (positive expression) or avoid (negative expression) the indicated target. Study 1 showed that 22-month-olds are better at integrating a positive facial expression with a pointing gesture compared with a negative facial expression with a pointing gesture. Study 2 tracked the integration of negative expressions and pointing across development, finding an unexpected, U-shaped trajectory with group-level success only at 46 months. Study 3 showed that already 34-month-olds succeeded when pointing was replaced with communicative gaze. These findings suggest that at the end of the second year of life, children are generally able to integrate emotional displays and communicative cues such as gestures and ostensive gaze to reevaluate and contextualize utterances. In addition, pointing gestures appear to be understood by young children as a call to act on a referenced object. Findings illustrate that communicative cues should be studied in conjunction with emotional displays to draw an ecologically valid picture of communicative development.

AB - In three studies, children aged 22 to 46 months (N = 180) needed to integrate pointing gestures or gaze cues with positive and negative facial expressions to succeed in an object-choice task. Finding a toy required children to either choose (positive expression) or avoid (negative expression) the indicated target. Study 1 showed that 22-month-olds are better at integrating a positive facial expression with a pointing gesture compared with a negative facial expression with a pointing gesture. Study 2 tracked the integration of negative expressions and pointing across development, finding an unexpected, U-shaped trajectory with group-level success only at 46 months. Study 3 showed that already 34-month-olds succeeded when pointing was replaced with communicative gaze. These findings suggest that at the end of the second year of life, children are generally able to integrate emotional displays and communicative cues such as gestures and ostensive gaze to reevaluate and contextualize utterances. In addition, pointing gestures appear to be understood by young children as a call to act on a referenced object. Findings illustrate that communicative cues should be studied in conjunction with emotional displays to draw an ecologically valid picture of communicative development.

KW - Communication

KW - Emotion understanding

KW - Gaze

KW - Negation

KW - Pointing

KW - Social referencing

KW - Psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092078198&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104984

DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104984

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 33038706

AN - SCOPUS:85092078198

VL - 201

JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

SN - 0022-0965

M1 - 104984

ER -