The Annals of the Hokkaido Psychological Society
Online ISSN : 2189-7670
Print ISSN : 0918-2756
ISSN-L : 2189-7670
Research Articles
The use of toddlers’ clear and ambiguous facial expressions as a measure for the general and the unique tendency in emotional interpretations: A study for its validity
Kumi MatsudaMayumi Adachi
Author information
JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2018 Volume 40 Pages 1-11

Details
Abstract

We examined the validity of visual stimuli used to measure the general and the unique tendencies in emotional interpretations. The stimuli consisted of toddlers’ facial expressions. The “clear” stimuli portray valence that can be interpreted consistently across individuals, measuring the general tendency of emotional interpretations. The “ambiguous” stimuli portray valence that can be interpreted differently across individuals, measuring individual differences in emotional interpretations. In Experiment 1, we showed a preliminary set of stimuli—6 clear and 8 ambiguous expressions—to two samples of college students and a sample of mothers, and asked them to interpret whether each stimulus looked happy, sad, angry, disgusted, scared, or surprised. In Experiment 2, we tested 70 mothers with 9 clear and 8 ambiguous expressions. Results in these experiments confirmed the internal validity and the external validity of our stimulus sets: All samples interpreted the clear expressions consistently while they

interpreted the ambiguous expressions inconsistently.

Content from these authors
2018 Hokkaido Psychological Society
Next article
feedback
Top