@article {2733, title = {Inferring Beliefs and Desires From Emotional Reactions to Anticipated and Observed Events}, journal = {Child Development}, year = {2017}, month = {03/2017}, abstract = {

Researchers have long been interested in the relation between emotion understanding and theory of mind. This study investigates a cue to mental states that has rarely been investigated: the dynamics of valenced emotional expressions. When the valence of a character{\textquoteright}s facial expression was stable between an expected and observed outcome, children (N\ =\ 122; M\ =\ 5.0\ years) recovered the character{\textquoteright}s desires but did not consistently recover her beliefs. When the valence changed, older but not younger children recovered both the characters{\textquoteright} beliefs and desires. In contrast, adults jointly recovered agents{\textquoteright} beliefs and desires in all conditions. These results suggest that the ability to infer mental states from the dynamics of emotional expressions develops gradually through early and middle childhood.

}, doi = {10.1111/cdev.12759}, url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.12759/abstract}, author = {Yang Wu and Laura Schulz} } @proceedings {1204, title = {A fine-grained understanding of emotions: Young children match within-valence emotional expressions to their causes}, year = {2015}, month = {07/2015}, pages = {2685-2690}, author = {Yang Wu and Laura Schulz} }