Facial and Auditory Recognition Abilities of Implanted Primary Schoolers

<b><i>Objective:</i></b> Emotions are often conveyed via visual and together with the auditory mode in social interaction. We aimed to investigate the ability to recognize facial and/or auditory emotions in school-aged children with cochlear implantation and healthy controls. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> All participants were asked to respond to facial emotions of Ekman and Friesen’s pictures, then auditory emotions, and last, they were asked to respond to video-based dynamic synchronous facial and auditory emotions. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The mean accuracy rates in recognizing anger (<i>p</i> = 0.025), surprise (<i>p</i> = 0.029), and neutral (<i>p</i> = 0.029) faces were significantly worse in children with cochlear implants (CIs) than in healthy controls. They were significantly worse than healthy controls in recognizing all auditory emotions except auditory emotion of fear (<i>p</i> = 0.067). The mean accuracy rates in recognizing video-based auditory/facial emotions of surprise (<i>p</i> = 0.031) and neutral (<i>p</i> = 0.029) emotions were significantly worse in children with CIs. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> The children with hearing loss were poorer in recognizing surprise, anger, and neutral facial emotions than healthy children; they had similar performance in recognizing anger emotions when both stimuli were given synchronously which may have a positive effect on social behaviors. It seems beneficial that emotion recognition training should be included in rehabilitation programs.

Veracity judgement, not accuracy: Reconsidering the role of facial expressions, empathy, and emotion recognition training on deception detection

People hold strong beliefs about the role of emotional cues in detecting deception. While research on the diagnostic value of such cues has been mixed, their influence on human veracity judgements is yet to be fully explored. Here, we address the relationship between emotional information and veracity judgements. In Study 1, the role of emotion recognition in the process of detecting naturalistic lies was investigated. Decoders’ veracity judgements were compared based on differences in trait empathy and their ability to recognise microexpressions and subtle expressions. Accuracy was found to be unrelated to facial cue recognition and negatively related to empathy. In Study 2, we manipulated decoders’ emotion recognition ability and the type of lies they saw: experiential or affective (emotional and unemotional). Decoders received either emotion recognition training, bogus training, or no training. In all scenarios, training did not affect veracity judgements. Experiential lies were easier to detect than affective lies; however, affective unemotional lies were overall the hardest to judge. The findings illustrate the complex relationship between emotion recognition and veracity judgements, with abilities for facial cue detection being high yet unrelated to deception accuracy.

Emotional recognition training modifies neural response to emotional faces but does not improve mood in healthy volunteers with high levels of depressive symptoms

Background There is demand for new, effective and scalable treatments for depression, and development of new forms of cognitive bias modification (CBM) of negative emotional processing biases has been suggested as possible interventions to meet this need. Methods We report two double blind RCTs, in which volunteers with high levels of depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory ii (BDI-ii) > 14) completed a brief course of emotion recognition training (a novel form of CBM using faces) or sham training. In Study 1 (N = 36), participants completed a post-training emotion recognition task whilst undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural correlates of CBM. In Study 2 (N = 190), measures of mood were assessed post-training, and at 2-week and 6-week follow-up. Results In both studies, CBM resulted in an initial change in emotion recognition bias, which (in Study 2) persisted for 6 weeks after the end of training. In Study 1, CBM resulted in increases neural activation to happy faces, with this effect driven by an increase in neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral amygdala. In Study 2, CBM did not lead to a reduction in depressive symptoms on the BDI-ii, or on related measures of mood, motivation and persistence, or depressive interpretation bias at either 2 or 6-week follow-ups. Conclusions CBM of emotion recognition has effects on neural activity that are similar in some respects to those induced by Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) administration (Study 1), but we find no evidence that this had any later effect on self-reported mood in an analogue sample of non-clinical volunteers with low mood (Study 2).

Emotion recognition and deception detection

People hold strong beliefs regarding the role of emotional cues in detecting deception. While research on the diagnostic value of such cues has been mixed, their influence on human veracity judgments should not be ignored. Here, we address the relationship between emotional information and veracity judgments. In Study 1, the role of emotion recognition in the process of detecting naturalistic lies was investigated. Decoders’ accuracy was compared based on differences in trait empathy and their ability to recognize microexpressions and subtle expressions. Accuracy was found to be unrelated to facial cue recognition but negatively related to empathy. In Study 2, we manipulated decoders’ emotion recognition ability and the type of lies they saw: experiential or affective. Decoders either received emotion recognition training, bogus training, or no training. In all scenarios, training was not found to impact on accuracy. Experiential lies were easier to detect than affective lies, but, affective emotional lies were easier to detect than affective unemotional lies. The findings suggest that emotion recognition has a complex relationship with veracity judgments.

The effects of emotion recognition training on interpersonal effectiveness

Being accurate in recognizing others’ emotions from nonverbal cues has been shown to correlate with a variety of positive social outcomes. Several training programs to enhance emotion recognition ability have been developed; however, no study to date has examined whether such programs affect behaviors and outcomes in face-to-face social interactions. In the present study, dyads of same-gender students were randomly assigned to complete either a self-administered brief emotion recognition training or a control training about cloud types. All dyads then engaged in an employee-recruiter negotiation. Results showed that dyads trained in emotion recognition reached more egalitarian economic outcomes, rated themselves and their partners as less competitive after the negotiation, and received higher ratings of positive affect from independent observers. These findings open up the potential for various applications in the context of work, education, and close relationships.