ABSTRACT
Facial displays are a primary means of communication for preverbal infants and their caregivers. They communicate emotion (Ekman, 1993; Izard & Malatesta, 1987) and pain (Craig, Hyde, & Patrick, 1991; Izard, Hembree, Dougherty, & Spirrizzi, 1983), regulate social behavior (Cohn & Elmore, 1988; Klinnert, Campos, Sorce, Emde, & Svejda, 1983), indicate brain (Ekman, Davidson, & Friesen, 1990; Fox & Davidson, 1988) and autonomic activation (Levenson, 1992; Lewis, Ramsay, & Kawakami, 1993) and pathology (Rinn, 1984), and signal developmental transitions (Campos, Bennett, & Kermoian, 1992; Emde, Gaensbauer, & Harmon, 1976; Sroufe, 1977). Infants have well-organized emotional responses to the facial displays of caregivers (Cohn & Elmore, 1988; Cohn & Tronick, 1983) and stable patterns of individual differences in facial expression arise within the first half year (Cohn & Campbell, 1992; Malatesta, Culver, Tesman, & Shephard, 1989; Sullivan, Lewis, & Alessandri, 1992). Individual differences in facial expression in response to age-appropriate stressors predict later social and emotional development (Cohn, Campbell, & Ross, 1992; Moore, Cohn, & Camp-bell, 1997). Because of the importance of infant and caregiver facial displays in infancy research, reliable, valid, and efficient methods of measurement are critical.
