Signal detection analysis of affective prosody recognition in forensic inpatients who have committed sexual offenses

Abstract

ABSTRACT Socio-affective functioning, or the way we interact and relate to others, is one of the four dynamic sexual recidivism risk domains. Accurately recognizing emotions enables the inference of mental and affective states supporting social adaptation. As little attention has been paid to affective prosody recognition in forensic inpatients who have committed sexual offenses (FICSOs), this study assessed the accuracy and sensitivity scores of 111 male participants assigned into three groups: FICSOs (n = 35), forensic inpatients who have committed non-sexual offenses (FICNSOs, n = 26) and community members (CoM, n = 50). Collected data also include response bias, emotion labeling reflection time, task easiness and task easiness reflection time. Using non-parametric group comparisons (Kruskal–Wallis H and Mann–Whitney U), results highlight, overall, a pervasive impairment of affective prosody recognition in FICSOs and FICNSOs compared to CoM. However, there was no difference in disgust sensitivity scores between FICSOs and CoM. FICSOs and FICNSOs took significantly longer than CoM to select an emotional label, especially for happiness. In addition, a metacognitive impairment was found in FICSOs and FICNSOs as they found the task significantly easier than CoM while being less sensitive.