Berman, Jared M. J.Chambers, Craig G.Graham, Susan2020-04-202020-04-202016-10Berman, J. M. J., Chambers, C. G., & Graham, S. A. (2016). Preschoolers' real-time coordination of vocal and facial emotional information. "Journal of Experimental Child Psychology", 142 (2016), 391-399. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.014http://hdl.handle.net/1880/111820https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/43623An eye-tracking methodology was used to examine the time course of 3- and 5-year-olds' ability to link speech bearing different acoustic cues to emotion (i.e., happy-sounding, neutral, and sad-sounding intonation) to photographs of faces reflecting different emotional expressions. Analyses of saccadic eye movement patterns indicated that, for both 3- and 5-year-olds, sad-sounding speech triggered gaze shifts to a matching (sad-looking) face from the earliest moments of speech processing. However, it was not until approximately 800ms into a happy-sounding utterance that preschoolers began to use the emotional cues from speech to identify a matching (happy-looking) face. Complementary analyses based on conscious/controlled behaviors (children's explicit points toward the faces) indicated that 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, could successfully match happy-sounding and sad-sounding vocal affect to a corresponding emotional face. Together, the findings clarify developmental patterns in preschoolers' implicit versus explicit ability to coordinate emotional cues across modalities and highlight preschoolers' greater sensitivity to sad-sounding speech as the auditory signal unfolds in time.engUnless otherwise indicated, this material is protected by copyright and has been made available with authorization from the copyright owner. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.journal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.014