The Emotion Recognition Task: A Novel Method for Evaluating Nonverbal Emotion Recognition Deficits in Epilepsy Patients
Abstract number :
3.48
Submission category :
4. Clinical Epilepsy / 4B. Clinical Diagnosis
Year :
2024
Submission ID :
1536
Source :
www.aesnet.org
Presentation date :
12/9/2024 12:00:00 AM
Published date :
Authors :
Presenting Author: Mary Ann Manley, BS – Emory University
Evan Brady, BA – Emory University
Taylor Shade, BS – Emory University
Edward Valentin, PhD – Emory University
Adam Dickey, MD, PhD – Emory University
Daniel Drane, PhD – Emory University
Rationale: Patients with epilepsy often experience impaired nonverbal communication, which may manifest as difficulty recognizing emotions based on facial expressions (Yogarajah & Mula, 2019). The Emotion Recognition Task (ERT) was developed by Kessels et al., 2013 to assess healthy individuals’ ability to perceive others’ emotions via facial expressions. We administered the ERT to patients with epilepsy as a novel test to further evaluate the deficits these individuals may possess as they pertain to emotion recognition, as growing research suggests they may have unappreciated deficits in this area of function.
Methods: 67 participants were enrolled in the ERT testing. 50 participants were epilepsy patients (EPs) tested on the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit at Emory University Hospital, and 17 were (HCs) with no prior neurological conditions. The ERT contains 96 computerized trials, each of which presents a face morphing from a neutral expression into a specific emotion. Each of the six emotions (happiness, sadness anger, surprise, fear, and disgust) are presented in 16 trials. After each trial, the participant must indicate which emotion the morphed face is expressing. The emotion and intensity (40%, 60%, 80%, or 100% intensity) at which it is expressed varies from trial to trial.
Results: EPs performed significantly worse than HCs on the ERT. A two-tailed t-test was conducted to compare the mean number of trials in which the emotions were correctly identified between s and HCs, which were 52.6 (33rd percentile) and 59.3 (53rd percentile) out of 96, respectively (p = 0.008). When determining which of the six specific emotions were more commonly misidentified in the EP population, only anger and fear yielded statistically significant differences. On average, the EP group correctly identified anger in 10.60 of the 16 trials where it was presented, while the HC group correctly identified anger in 12.59 of the 16 trials (p = 0.015). The EP group correctly identified fear in 4.16 of the 16 trials, on average, while the HC group correctly identified fear in 5.65 of the 16 trials, on average (p = 0.040).
Conclusions: Our findings revealed an overall worse performance on the ERT in the EP population compared to the HC population, with anger and fear being the most misidentified emotions among EPs. Further research may explore the possibility of using the ERT as a diagnostic tool for epilepsy in the clinical setting.
Funding: This project was partially funded by NIH/NINDS grants awarded to Dr. Drane (R01 NS088748, K02 NS070960).
Clinical Epilepsy