Recognition of Facial Expressions by Urban Internet-Addicted Left-Behind Children in China

Internet addition affects facial expression recognition of individuals. However, evidences of facial expression recognition from different types of addicts are insufficient. The present study addressed the question by adopting eye-movement analytical method and focusing on the difference in facial expression recognition between internet-addicted and non-internet-addicted urban left-behind children in China. Sixty 14-year-old Chinese participants performed tasks requiring absolute recognition judgment and relative recognition judgment. The results show that the information processing mode adopted by the internet-addicted involved earlier gaze acceleration, longer fixation durations, lower fixation counts, and uniform extraction of pictorial information. The information processing mode of the non-addicted showed the opposite pattern. Moreover, recognition and processing of negative emotion pictures were relatively complex, and it was especially difficult for urban internet-addicted left-behind children to process negative emotion pictures in fine judgment and processing stage of recognition on differences as demonstrated by longer fixation duration and inadequate fixation counts.