The ability to interpret emotions in facial expressions is crucial for social functioning across the lifespan. Facial expression recognition develops rapidly during infancy and improves with age during the preschool years. However, the developmental trajectory from late childhood to adulthood is less clear. We tested older children, adolescents…

The ability of 18 aggressive and 21 nonaggressive men with moderate mental retardation to label and discriminate facial expressions was investigated. Although aggressive participants did not have greater difficulty with emotion labeling, they did have a negative emotional bias for facial expressions that were ambiguous to them. (Author/CR)