Emotional states and their co-occurrence in typically developing preschoolers during an augmented reality emotion task: a descriptive study

This study offers a descriptive baseline of the emotional states that typically developing preschoolers report during an augmented reality (AR) emotion task, a group underrepresented in clinically focused research. Two emotion responses from each of 197 children aged 4–5 in Central Taiwan were coded into ten affective states (Cohen’s κ = .89–.92) and summarized as co-occurrences within four valence–arousal categories. Positive states co-occurred most often, negative states rarely, and opposite-valence pairs were seldom reported. Because the second response was elicited by asking for a different emotion, these patterns describe co-reported emotions rather than spontaneous transitions. A preliminary measurement analysis showed that context recognition, emotional expression, and emotional competence could not be empirically distinguished; they are treated provisionally as one weakly differentiated set of indicators. Findings are limited by a single-group, single-session, correlational design and offer a baseline for early social-emotional development and the design of AR-based activities.