Developmental Study: Emotional Recognition in Children and Adults.
With a view to challenging the initial views on egocentrism this study sought to determine if development has an effect on the ability to recognise emotions. Children aged between eight and eleven inclusive and adults made a forced choice opinion from a paired set of words that described a selection of eleven works of Hockney and Velazquez. To eliminate language barriers the children's choices were simplified with a comprehension question included if necessary. The results showed no significant variation within the children, which similarly were comparable to the adult findings. This contradicts earlier beliefs by demonstrating firstly, that the ability to distinguish emotions develops prior to the age of eight and secondly, that it does not improve up to the age of eleven and further into adulthood.
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Cognition and child development are core aspects of psychological study and various aspects of both are under constant renewal and debate. Two of these are the recognition of mental states and the age at which this ability is developed in children. Jean Piaget (1896-1980), perhaps the most famous child psychologists first published his theories on the developmental stages and their characteristics in 1923 and from then on the topic has been under constant conjecture. The second of those stages is that of the Preoperational Child from ages two to seven (Piaget, 1922; cited in Nairn 2003). Egocentrism, the tendency for children in the stage to see the world from only their perspective and not think about those of others, is a primary feature. This was tested by the Swiss psychologist using his Three Mountains Task, (Piaget, 1922; cited in Nairn 2003) whereby the subject had to determine the view of the scenery of another person sitting away from them. It has been widely criticised over the decades because the paper mache model was obscure and very difficult.