Abstract

In adults, the observation of an emotional facial expression has been proven to activate the sensorimotor areas involved in the execution of the same expression (Van der Gaag et al., 2007). The present study investigated whether a sensorimotor activation was already present in response to dynamic facial expressions at 7 months of age. To this purpose, infants were presented with female faces expressing either happiness or anger, and the sensorimotor activation over central left (C3) and right (C4) clusters of electrodes was analyzed. Results revealed a right-lateralized mu rhythm desynchronization in response to happy faces, but not to angry faces.