Facial Emotion Recognition Accuracy and Child Physical Abuse: An Experiment and a Meta-Analysis

Objective: To examine child facial emotion recognition accuracy (ERA) in high-risk for child physical abuse (CPA) parents and low-risk for CPA parents (Study 1) and to conduct a meta-analysis summarizing published research on the relationship between child facial ERA and CPA (Study 2). Method: In Study 1, ERA data for child facial emotions were obtained from mothers and fathers who were at high risk (n = 51) or low risk (n = 61) for CPA. In 1 of 2 presentation time conditions (100 ms, 600 ms), parents evaluated child photographs, taken from the Radboud Faces Database, which displayed 5 face emotions (angry, happy, sad, fearful, neutral) at 3 face angles (frontal, 45 degrees, 90 degrees). In Study 2, a meta-analysis of published studies was used to estimate the overall effect size of ERA differences between high-risk/abusive and comparison parents. Results: In Study 1, ERA differences were found for emotions (largest ERA for happiness), face angles (frontal > 45 degrees > 90 degrees), and presentation times (100 ms < 600 ms); however, only an overall trend for ERA risk group differences was observed. Nevertheless, the Study 2 meta-analyses revealed a significant effect size reflecting an overall moderate ERA difference between high-risk/abusive and comparison parents, and the effect size was not moderated by the population studied (high-risk parents vs. abusive parents). Conclusions: Because child facial ERA appears to be associated with CPA, the manner in which parental child emotion recognition errors contribute to problematic parent-child interactions merits additional study.