Psychometric Properties and Validation of the EMOTICOM Test Battery in a Healthy Danish Population.

Vibeke H Dam,Gitte M Knudsen,Amy R Bland,Dea S Stenbæk,Peter S Jensen,Erik L Mortensen,Barbara J Sahakian,Vibe G Frokjaer,Christa K Thystrup,Rebecca Elliott

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02660

Abstract

Disruptions in hot cognition, i.e., the processing of emotionally salient information, are prevalent in most neuropsychiatric disorders and constitute a potential treatment target. EMOTICOM is the first comprehensive neuropsychological test battery developed specifically to assess hot cognition. The aim of the study was to validate and establish a Danish language version and reference data for the EMOTICOM test battery. To evaluate the psychometric properties of 11 EMOTICOM tasks, we collected data from 100 healthy Danish participants (50 males, 50 females) including retest data from 49 participants. We assessed test–retest reliability, floor and ceiling effects, task-intercorrelations, and correlations between task performance and relevant demographic and descriptive factors. We found that test–retest reliability varied from poor to excellent while some tasks exhibited floor or ceiling effects. Intercorrelations among EMOTICOM task outcomes were low, indicating that the tasks capture different cognitive constructs. EMOTICOM task performance was largely independent of age, sex, education, and IQ as well as current mood, personality, and self-reported motivation and diligence during task completion. Overall, many of the EMOTICOM tasks were found to be useful and objective measures of hot cognition although select tasks may benefit from modifications to avoid floor and ceiling effects in healthy individuals.

Highlights

Hot cognition describes cognitive processing of emotionally salient information (Roiser and Sahakian, 2013)
In addition to demographic characteristics, we looked at how other relevant factors such as trait Neuroticism and selfreported mood might influence responses on EMOTICOM tasks
While most tasks exhibited acceptable psychometric properties, select tasks may not be appropriate for use in healthy individuals due to issues relating to floor and ceiling effects, low test–retest reliability and lack of withintask correlations

Summary

Introduction

Hot cognition describes cognitive processing of emotionally salient information (Roiser and Sahakian, 2013). Disruptions in hot cognitive processes have been identified as core features in a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders such as mood disorders (Elliott et al, 2011), anxiety disorders (Plana et al, 2014), schizophrenia (Ventura et al, 2013), Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (Umemoto et al, 2014), and autism (Harms et al, 2010). Impairments in motivation and reward-driven behaviors have been observed in psychopathological conditions including aggression (Kuin et al, 2015), traumatic brain injury (Newcombe et al, 2011), and ADHD (Umemoto et al, 2014) while differences in neural response to rewards and loss and disruptions in reinforcement learning have been linked to schizophrenia and major depressive disorder (MDD) (Chen et al, 2015; Hagele et al, 2015). Subclinical symptoms of depression and anxiety (Routledge et al, 2018), as well as natural sex hormone fluctuations in women (Osorio et al, 2018), produce changes in hot cognition

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