The development of empathy in infancy: insights from the rapid facial mimicry response
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1
The University of New South Wales, School of Psychology, Australia
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2
The University of Queensland, School of Psychology, Australia
Background:
Humans rapidly and unconsciously mimic other’s emotional facial expressions, a phenomenon known as Rapid Facial Mimicry (RFM). The RFM response is considered to be a low-level process of empathy, which enables an observer to experience and share another’s emotions. Measured using facial electromyography (EMG), RFM has been associated with empathic function in clinical and healthy populations and has been demonstrated across the lifespan in child, adolescent, adult and older adult samples. Theories of RFM suggest that it is present from birth, however, no study has investigated this response in children younger than 6 years of age. Documenting development of the RFM response will allow us to understand how infants begin to share emotion when they observe facial expressions in others.
Methods:
Using facial EMG, corrugator supercillii (brow) and zygomaticus major (cheek) muscle activity was recorded (1000 ms post-stimulus onset) whilst 3-and-7month old infants viewed happy and angry facial expressions.
Results:
Seven-month-old infants (n = 33) were found to exhibit a typical RFM response to happy but not angry facial expressions. In contrast, preliminary results indicate that 3-month-olds (n = 22) do not yet exhibit mimicry responses to either of these facial expressions.
Discussion:
Our findings demonstrate that RFM, a low-level empathy response, is present in the first year of life, but may not be present from birth. They also suggest that experience with facial expressions of emotion is likely to be important for development of the RFM response. These findings represent the first attempt to measure rapid emotional facial responses in an infant sample, and indicate that infants are capable of sharing certain emotions from an early age.
Keywords:
mimicry,
Empathy,
facial electromyography,
Infancy,
developmental psychology
Conference:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013.
Presentation Type:
Oral
Topic:
Emotion and Social
Citation:
Datyner
AC,
Richmond
JL and
Henry
JD
(2013). The development of empathy in infancy: insights from the rapid facial mimicry response.
Conference Abstract:
ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00180
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Received:
15 Oct 2013;
Published Online:
25 Nov 2013.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Amy C Datyner, The University of New South Wales, School of Psychology, Sydney, Australia, a.datyner@unsw.edu.au