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ABRAMOVITCH, RONA. Children's Recognition of Situational Aspects of Facial Expression. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 459-463. 2 experiments were done in which a total of 36 preschool children were presented with videotapes of their own and unknown mothers interacting with strange and familiar people. They saw only the mother's face and upper torso, with no sound. The children were able to guess correctly whether their own mother was interacting with a friend or a stranger (of the same or opposite sex). However, they were not successful with respect to videotapes of unknown mothers. Adults (20 in the first experiment and 14 in the second) were presented with the same videotapes and were successful in discriminating interactions with friends versus strangers. The results are discussed in terms of ability to recognize situational as well as affective or emotional aspects of facial expressions.
Rona Abramovitch (Wed,) studied this question.