Abstract: Using the infant control habituation-recovery procedure,this reserach investigated 8 to 12-month-olds' ability to discriminate the facial expressions(H: Happy,F: Fear.A:Anger) in six emotional pairs:H-A,A-H,H-F,F-H,A-F,F-A; the habituation rates of these three expressions were studied. The results indicated that:1) Most infants gave their peak fixation in the early stage of habituation;2) Infants at the different ages showed no significant difference in the rate of habituation; 3) In the six pairs of three emotional expressions,infants at different ages could distinguish a second expression following habituation to the first one,that is,there was no order effect in the process of recognition.

Key words: emotion, cognition, infant, psychological development