To draw valid and reliable conclusions from child studies involving facial expressions, well-controlled and validated (child) facial stimuli are necessary. The current study is the first to validate the facial emotional expressions of child models in school-aged children. In this study, we validated the Radboud Faces Database child models in a large sample of children (N = 547; 256 boys) aged between 8 and 12. In addition, associated validation measures such as valence, clarity, and model attractiveness were examined. Overall, the results indicated that children were able to accurately identify the emotional expressions on the child faces in approximately 70% of the cases. The highest accuracy rates were found for "happiness," whereas "contempt" received the lowest accuracy scores. Children confused the emotions "fear" and "surprise," and the emotions "contempt" and "neutral" with one another. Ratings of all facial stimuli are available (https://osf.io/7srgw/) and can be used to select appropriate stimuli to investigate the processing of children’s facial emotional expressions.

中文翻译：

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儿童验证Radboud Faces数据库的儿童模型

为了从涉及面部表情的儿童研究中得出有效和可靠的结论，必须进行良好控制和验证的（儿童）面部刺激。当前的研究是第一个验证学龄儿童模型的面部表情的研究。在这项研究中，我们在8至12岁的大量儿童样本（N = 547； 256个男孩）中验证了Radboud Faces Database儿童模型。此外，还研究了相关的验证方法，例如化合价，清晰度和模型吸引力。总体而言，结果表明，在大约70％的案例中，孩子们能够准确地识别出孩子脸上的情绪表达。发现“幸福”的准确率最高，而“鄙视”的准确率最低。孩子们混淆了情绪“恐惧” 和“惊奇”，以及彼此“鄙视”和“中立”的情绪。可获得所有面部刺激的评分（https://osf.io/7srgw/），可用于选择适当的刺激以研究儿童面部表情的处理。