Abstract
The present study investigated strategies for inferring emotional states from contradictory cues in a sentence. The participants, 3 boys (aged 9 years 10 months, 10 years 2 months, and 14 years 7 months) with developmental disabilities were presented a sentence containing 3 cues: situation, facial expression, and action, with contradictory emotions (e.g., happy and sad). They were then asked what the emotional state of the character in the sentence was and the reason for their answer. In the training phase, responses reconciling the emotionally contradictory cues were reinforced with prompts, whereas other responses were extinguished. Eventually, all participants came to reconcile the emotionally contradictory cues; they adjusted their strategy to the presence or absence of feedback. These results suggest that the participants' strategies for inferring emotional states from contradictory stimuli were affected both by characteristics of the children's developmental disabilities and by the listener's responses.
