Cross-Cultural and Environmental Influences on Facial Emotional Discrimination Sensitivity in 9-Year-Old Children from Swiss and Vietnamese Schools

Abstract

Abstract. The Other Race Effect (ORE), i.e., recognition facilitation for own-race faces, is a well-established phenomenon with broad evidence in adults and infants. Nevertheless, the ORE in older children is poorly understood, and even less so for emotional face processing. This research samples 87 9-year-old children from Vietnamese and Swiss schools. In two separate studies, we evaluated the children’s abilities to perceive the disappearance of emotions in Asian and Caucasian faces in an offset task. The first study evaluated an “emotional ORE” in Vietnamese-Asian, Swiss-Caucasian, and Swiss-Multicultural children. Offset times showed an emotional ORE in Vietnamese-Asian children living in an ethnically homogeneous environment, whereas mixed ethnicities in Swiss children seem to have balanced performance between face types. The second study compared socioemotionally trained versus untrained Vietnamese-Asian children. Vietnamese children showed a strong emotional ORE and tend to increase their sensitivity to emotion offset after training. Moreover, an effect of emotion consistent with previous observation in adults could suggest a cultural sensitivity to disapproval signs. Taken together, the results suggest that 9-year-old children can present an emotional ORE, but that a heterogeneous environment or an emotional training could strengthen face-processing abilities without reducing skills on their own-group.