Diagnostic Analysis Of Nonverbal Accuracy Research Articles

Mentalizing in a movie for the assessment of social cognition (MASC): the validation in a taiwanese sample

BackgroundThe present study evaluated the psychometrics properties of a sensitive video-based test used in the evaluation of mentalizing skills, that is, the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition-Taiwanese version (MASC-TW).MethodsWe recruited two independent samples of nonclinical participants (N = 167) and adult patients with schizophrenia (N = 41). The MASC-TW and two other social cognition measures, namely the Chinese version of Theory of Mind task (ToM) and the Taiwanese version of the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 (DANAV-TW-2), and an executive function measure of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), were administered to both groups.ResultsThe MASC proved to be a reliable measure of mentalizing capacity, high Cronbach’s α value of 0.87. The intraclass correlation coefficient for the MASC-TW total correct scores was 0.85 across three waves of data collection. Across the entire sample, the scores on the MASC-TW were significantly correlated with verbal and nonverbal scores for the ToM task and recognition of facial and prosodic emotion on the DANAV-TW-2. Both executive function and emotion recognition emerged as noteworthy predictors of mentalizing, indicating that these two variables might play crucial roles in the development of mentalizing capacities. Finally, a receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that in patients with schizophrenia, the MASC was the most accurate discriminator of diagnostic groups, highlighting the validity of the MASC.ConclusionsOverall, the MASC-TW is an ecologically valid and useful tool for assessing mentalizing abilities in a Taiwanese population.

Predisposing Variables in Children with Risk of Disruptive Mood: A Clinical Case–Control Study

ABSTRACT Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) is defined in the DSM-V as frequent, severe temper outbursts that significantly impair functioning in different environments. This was a second-stage of follow-up study, conducted to screen the frequency of DMDD in an elementary school. In the first-stage of our study, 453 children between ages 7–11 were evaluated in terms of DMDD high-risk with Children Behavior Check List (CBCL). Of the children, 30 high-risk and 30 low-risk children for DMDD according to CBCL agreed to participate this clinical case–control study. Diagnoses of anxiety disorder, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and oppositional defiant disorder were more common among children in the high-risk group than the control group. Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) mothers’ interpersonal, anger, and paranoid subscale scores were higher in the DMDD high-risk group than the control group. Children in the DMDD high-risk group scored higher than the control group in all SRS subscales. In the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) test, the DMDD high-risk group had higher error rates for fearful and intense facial expressions. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that having a diagnosis of ADHD, high maternal SCL-90-R anger score, and presence of a paternal psychiatric diagnosis increased the high-risk of DMDD.

Facial emotion recognition and mood symptom course in young adults with childhood-onset bipolar disorder.

Facial emotion recognition deficits are common in bipolar disorder (BD) and associated with impairment. However, the relationship between facial emotion recognition and mood course is not well understood. This study examined facial emotion recognition and subsequent mood symptoms in young adults with childhood-onset BD versus typically developing controls (TDCs). The sample included 116 young adults (ages 18-30, 58% male, 78% White) with prospectively verified childhood-onset BD (n = 52) and TDCs (n = 64). At baseline, participants completed a facial emotion recognition task (Diagnostic Analysis of Non-Verbal Accuracy-2) and clinical measures. Then, participants with BD completed mood symptom assessments every 6months (M = 8.7 ± 5.2months) over two years. Analyses included independent-samples t tests and mixed-effects regression models. Participants with BD made significantly more recognition errors for child expressions than TDCs. There were no significant between-group differences for recognition errors for adult expressions, or errors for specific child or adult emotional expressions. Participants had moderate baseline mood symptoms. Significant time-by-facial emotion recognition interactions revealed more recognition errors for child emotional expressions predicted lower baseline mania and stable/consistent trajectory; fewer recognition errors for child expressions predicted higher baseline mania and decreasing trajectory. In addition, more recognition errors for adult sad expressions predicted stable/consistent depression trajectory and decreasing mania; fewer recognition errors for adult sad expressions predicted decreasing depression trajectory and stable/consistent mania. Effects remained when controlling for baseline demographics and clinical variables. Facial emotion recognition may be an important brain/behavior mechanism, prognostic indicator, and intervention target for childhood-onset BD, which endures into young adulthood and is associated with mood trajectory.

Examining the bidirectional association between emotion recognition and social autistic traits using observational and genetic analyses.

BackgroundThere is mixed evidence for an association between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and emotion recognition deficits. We sought to assess the bidirectionality of this association using phenotypic and genetic data in a large community sample.MethodsAnalyses were conducted in three stages. First, we examined the bidirectional association between social autistic traits at age 8 years and emotion recognition task (ERT) responses at age 24 years (Study 1; N = 3,562); and between Diagnostic Analysis of Non‐Verbal Accuracy (DANVA) emotion recognition responses at age 8 years and social autistic traits at age 10 years (Study 2; N = 9,071). Next, we used genetic analyses (Study 3) to examine the association between polygenic risk scores for ASD and outcomes for the ERT and DANVA. The genetic correlation between ASD and ERT responses at age 24 was also estimated. Analyses were conducted in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.ResultsSocial autistic traits at age 8 years were negatively associated with later total correct responses on ERT in Study 1 (b = −0.18; 95% CI: −0.27 to −0.09). We also found evidence of an association in Study 2 (b = −0.04; 95% CI: −0.05 to −0.03). We found the opposite association, that is positive, between the ASD polygenic risk score and ERT (b = 0.40; 95% CI: 0.10 to 0.70); however, this association varied across different p‐value thresholds and would not survive multiple testing, so should be interpreted with caution. We did not find evidence of a genetic correlation between ASD and ERT.ConclusionWe found an observational association between poorer emotion recognition and increased social autistic traits. Our genetic analyses may suggest a shared genetic aetiology between these or a potential causal pathway; however, future research would benefit from using better powered GWAS to examine this further. Our results may inform interventions targeting emotion recognition.

Choking under pressure: Does it get easier with age? How loneliness affects social monitoring across the life span

Previous experimental work showed that young adults reporting loneliness performed less well on emotion recognition tasks (Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy [DANVA-2]) if they were framed as indicators of social aptitude, but not when the same tasks were framed as indexing academic aptitude. Such findings suggested that undergraduates reporting loneliness possessed the social monitoring skills necessary to read the emotions underlying others’ facial expressions, but that they choked under social pressure. It has also been found that undergraduates reporting loneliness have better recall for both positive and negative social information than their non-lonely counterparts. Whether those effects are evident across different age groups has not been examined. Using data from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Loneliness Experiment that included participants aged 16–99 years (N = 54,060), we (i) test for replication in a larger worldwide sample and (ii) extend those linear model analyses to other age groups. We found only effects for participants aged 25–34 years: In this age group, loneliness was associated with increased recall of negative individual information, and with choking under social pressure during the emotion recognition task; those effects were small. We did not find any such effects among participants in other age groups. Our findings suggest that different cognitive processes may be associated with loneliness in different age groups, highlighting the importance of life-course approaches in this area.

Mobile Technologies and Their Relationship to Children's Ability to Read Nonverbal Emotional Cues: A Cross-Temporal Comparison.

Key social learning occurs during early childhood with lasting effects throughout the lifespan. In the past 10 years, ownership of mobile technology grew rapidly, particularly in households with young children; this has dramatically changed the early learning landscape. With the ubiquity of mobile devices, many have questioned their effect on the social and emotional learning of children. To explore one aspect of this question, we conducted a cross-temporal comparison to compare two cohorts of sixth graders, one measured in 2012 and another in 2017. Each group took tests, one with still photographs of faces (diagnostic analysis of nonverbal accuracy 2 or DANVA2) and one with videotaped vignettes (the child and adolescent social perception measure or CASP), designed to measure their ability to accurately identify nonverbal emotional cues. We sought to explore whether changes in the early learning environment of the 2017 cohort, who grew up with mobile phones and tablets, could be related to participants' ability to read nonverbal emotional cues. We found that sixth-grade students in 2017 performed better than sixth-grade students in 2012 on the DANVA2, but not on the CASP. One possible reason participants improved on the test with still photographs is because mediated communication has become more visual and less text based, and sharing photographs of oneself and others is more common. Accordingly participants may be more accurate at interpreting emotional cues in photographs due to a larger exposure to photographs of faces.

Facial emotion recognition in children treated for posterior fossa tumours and typically developing children: A divergence of predictors.

Facial emotion recognition (FER) deficits are evident and pervasive across neurodevelopmental, psychiatric, and acquired brain disorders in children, including children treated for brain tumours. Such deficits are thought to perpetuate challenges with social relationships and decrease quality of life. The present study combined eye-tracking, neuroimaging and cognitive assessments to evaluate if visual attention, brain structure, and general cognitive function contribute to FER in children treated for posterior fossa (PF) tumours (patients: n = 36) and typically developing children (controls: n = 18). To assess FER, all participants completed the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA2), a computerized task that measures FER using photographs, while their eye-movements were recorded. Patients made more FER errors than controls (p < .01). Although we detected subtle deficits in visual attention and general cognitive function in patients, we found no associations with FER. Compared to controls, patients had evidence of white matter (WM) damage, (i.e., lower fractional anisotropy [FA] and higher radial diffusivity [RD]), in multiple regions throughout the brain (all p < .05), but not in specific WM tracts associated with FER. Despite the distributed WM differences between groups, WM predicted FER in controls only. In patients, factors associated with their disease and treatment predicted FER. Our study provides insight into predictors of FER that may be unique to children treated for PF tumours, and highlights a divergence in associations between brain structure and behavioural outcomes in clinical and typically developing populations; a concept that may be broadly applicable to other neurodevelopmental and clinical populations that experience FER deficits.

Emotion recognition and extraversion of medical students interact to predict their empathic communication perceived by simulated patients

BackgroundThis study assessed the impact of medical students’ emotion recognition ability and extraversion on their empathic communication, as perceived by simulated patients in a training context.MethodsThis study used a crossed-effect data structure and examined 245 students in their fourth year of medical school. The students’ personality traits were assessed based on a self-assessment questionnaire of the short form of the Big Five Inventory; their emotion recognition ability was measured using a performance test (Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2, Adult Facial Expressions). Simulated patients evaluated the medical students’ empathic communication.ResultsStudents with a combination of high emotion recognition ability and extraversion received more positive ratings from simulated patients than their fellow students with a combination of emotion recognition ability and low extraversion. The main effects of emotion recognition or extraversion were not sufficient to yield similar effects. There were no other effects related to the remaining Big Five variables.ConclusionsThe results support the hypothesis that to build rapport with patients, medical staff need to combine emotional capabilities with a dispositional interest in interpersonal encounters.

T137. CLASSIFICATION OF RECENT-ONSET PSYCHOSIS BASED ON RESTING-STATE FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY AND THE RELATIONSHIP TO NEUROCOGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT

BackgroundImpairments in cognitive functioning are a core feature of psychotic disorders and they have been associated with resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) alterations in patients suffering from psychosis (Dauverman et al., 2014). Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) has proven to be a useful tool in the investigation of rsFC alteration in psychosis and in detecting subtle differences in multidimensional data sets (Kambeitz et al., 2015). In this study, we differentiated recent-onset psychosis patients (ROP) from healthy controls (HC) using a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification based on rsFC. Furthermore, we investigated the relationship of the discriminative rsFC pattern to neurocognitive measures.MethodsResting-state fMRI and neurocognitive measures were obtained from 220 HC and 115 ROP across 7 sites of the PRONIA consortium. The rsFC matrix was estimated for each subject by calculating pairwise correlations between mean time series of 90 brain regions based on AAL parcellation. A L1-regularized L2-loss SVM was trained to classify ROP vs. HC based on rsFC in a repeated nested cross-validation. Decision scores for ROP were correlated with cognitive measures derived from the following neuropsychological tests: Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT), Phonetic and Semantic Verbal Fluency, Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy, Forward and Backward Digit Span, Self-ordered Pointing Task, and Salience Attribution Test.ResultsThe classification algorithm was able to differentiate ROP and HC with a balanced accuracy (BAC) of 71.3% based on rsFC. The discriminative connectivity pattern included short-range connections between left putamen and left hippocampus, right putamen and right caudate nucleus, left superior frontal and right inferior orbitofrontal regions, as well as long-range connections between left and right occipital cortex and left cingulate gyrus, left supramarginal gyrus and right temporal pole. Two negative correlations between the SVM decision scores for ROP and measures of the RAVLT were significant (delayed recall: r=-0.3, Bonferroni –adjusted p<.04; recall after interference: r=-0.3, Bonferroni-adjusted p<.02).DiscussionThe classification performance was driven by a rsFC pattern including areas involved in memory processing, such as hippocampus and cingulate gyrus (Allen et al., 2007) as well as regions related to language processing, such as the supra marginal gyrus (Li et al., 2009). The negative correlation of rsFC-based decision scores with RAVLT measures shows that patients whose verbal learning and memory is more severely impaired exhibit a more distinctive rsFC pattern than patients with less impaired verbal memory.

Genome-wide association study of facial emotion recognition in children and association with polygenic risk for mental health disorders.

Emotion recognition is disrupted in many mental health disorders, which may reflect shared genetic aetiology between this trait and these disorders. We explored genetic influences on emotion recognition and the relationship between these influences and mental health phenotypes. Eight‐year‐old participants (n = 4,097) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) completed the Diagnostic Analysis of Non‐Verbal Accuracy (DANVA) faces test. Genome‐wide genotype data was available from the Illumina HumanHap550 Quad microarray. Genome‐wide association studies were performed to assess associations with recognition of individual emotions and emotion in general. Exploratory polygenic risk scoring was performed using published genomic data for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, autism spectrum disorder, anorexia, and anxiety disorders. No individual genetic variants were identified at conventional levels of significance in any analysis although several loci were associated at a level suggestive of significance. SNP‐chip heritability analyses did not identify a heritable component of variance for any phenotype. Polygenic scores were not associated with any phenotype. The effect sizes of variants influencing emotion recognition are likely to be small. Previous studies of emotion identification have yielded non‐zero estimates of SNP‐heritability. This discrepancy is likely due to differences in the measurement and analysis of the phenotype.

Prosody Perception and Production in Children with Hearing Loss and Age- and Gender-Matched Controls.

Auditory development in children with hearing loss, including the perception of prosody, depends on having adequate input from cochlear implants and/or hearing aids. Lack of adequate auditory stimulation can lead to delayed speech and language development. Nevertheless, prosody perception and production in people with hearing loss have received less attention than other aspects of language. The perception of auditory information conveyed through prosody using variations in the pitch, amplitude, and duration of speech is not usually evaluated clinically. This study (1) compared prosody perception and production abilities in children with hearing loss and children with normal hearing; and (2) investigated the effect of age, hearing level, and musicality on prosody perception. Participants were 16 children with hearing loss and 16 typically developing controls matched for age and gender. Fifteen of the children with hearing loss were tested while using amplification (n = 9 hearing aids, n = 6 cochlear implants). Six receptive subtests of the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C), the Child Paralanguage subtest of Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy 2 (DANVA 2), and Contour and Interval subtests of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) were used. Audio recordings of the children's reading samples were rated using a perceptual prosody rating scale by nine experienced listeners who were blinded to the children's hearing status. Thirty two children, 16 with hearing loss (mean age = 8.71 yr) and 16 age- and gender-matched typically developing children with normal hearing (mean age = 8.87 yr). Assessments were completed in one session lasting 1-2 hours in a quiet room. Test items were presented using a laptop computer through loudspeaker at a comfortable listening level. For children with hearing loss using hearing instruments, all tests were completed with hearing devices set at their everyday listening setting. All PEPS-C subtests and total scores were significantly lower for children with hearing loss compared to controls (p < 0.05). The hearing loss group performed more poorly than the control group in recognizing happy, sad, and fearful emotions in the DANVA 2 subtest. Musicality (composite MBEA scores and musical experience) was significantly correlated with prosody perception scores, but this link was not evident in the regression analyses. Regression modeling showed that age and hearing level (better ear pure-tone average) accounted for 55.4% and 56.7% of the variance in PEPS-C and DANVA 2 total scores, respectively. There was greater variability for the ratings of pitch, pitch variation, and overall impression of prosody in the hearing loss group compared to control group. Prosody perception (PEPS-C and DANVA 2 total scores) and ratings of prosody production were not correlated. Children with hearing loss aged 7-12 yr had significant difficulties in understanding different aspects of prosody and were rated as having more atypical prosody overall than controls. These findings suggest that clinical assessment and speech-language therapy services for children with hearing loss should be expanded to target prosodic difficulties. Future studies should investigate whether musical training is beneficial for improving receptive prosody skills.

Empathy and Facial Expression Recognition in Children With and Without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Effects of Stimulant Medication on Empathic Skills in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

The aim of this study was to compare children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to healthy children and adolescents in terms of state and trait empathy and emotion expression recognition skills. The goal was also to determine whether there are changes in emotion recognition and empathy measures in children with ADHD after methylphenidate (MPH) treatment. The research sample consisted of outpatient drug-naive children and adolescents between the age of 8 and 14 years (n = 65) with ADHD according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. criteria, and healthy children and adolescents of the same age (n = 61). Scores of the oppositional problems (OPs) and conduct problems (CPs) were obtained to evaluate their impact on children's empathy skills with the Child Behavior Checklist. Self-reported (Bryant Index of Empathy, BEI) and parent-reported (Griffith Empathy Measurement-Parent Rating, GEM-PR) scales were used to evaluate trait empathy. The Empathy Response Task (ERT) was used to evaluate state empathy, and the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 (DANVA-2) was used to evaluate facial expression recognition skills. The scales and tests were repeated after 12 weeks of MPH treatment in the ADHD group. There were no significant statistical differences in trait empathy skills evaluated by parent-reported and self-reported measures, ERT, and DANVA-2 scores. In self-reported measures, the girls had higher scores than boys. From the results of the regression analysis, it was concluded that OPs were not associated with the measures. However, CPs were associated with the scores of the BEI, GEM-PR, and the match scores of the ERT. The average dosage of MPH in the group with ADHD was 0.83 ± 0.21 mg/(kg·d). While there was no change in the BEI and GEM-PR scores after 12 weeks of treatment, there was a significant increase in the ERT interpretation subscore and a significant decrease in the recognition error of anger and sadness expressions in the DANVA-2. The findings of our study suggest that children with ADHD have similar levels of trait and state empathy skills and facial expressions as healthy controls and CPs negatively affect their empathy skills. MPH treatment does not change trait empathy skills, yet there are some improvements in state empathy skills.

Social cognition in children at familial high-risk of developing an eating disorder.

Objective: Diagnosis of an eating disorder (ED) has been associated with differences in social cognition. To date research investigating social cognition and ED has mainly employed patient and recovered samples. It is therefore unclear whether differences in social cognition are present prior to onset of ED, potentially contributing to development, or whether differences observed are a consequence of the disorder. We aimed to further explore whether individuals at high-risk for ED present social cognition characteristics previously found in ED groups.Methods: Our sample was drawn from a population-based cohort, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Data on maternal ED behaviors over the lifetime were collected through in-depth clinical interviews (n = 1128) conducted using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM disorders (SCID), and were used to categorize mothers according to ED behaviors over the lifetime: Restricting and Excessive Exercising (n = 58), Purging (n = 70), Binge-eating (n = 72), Binging and Purging (n = 66), no ED (n = 862). High-risk status of children was determined using these maternal lifetime behavioral phenotypes. Children at high-risk (maternal ED exposure) were compared to children at low-risk (born to mothers with no ED) on three measures of social cognition: the Social Communication Disorders Checklist (SCDC) (n = 922), the faces subtest of the Diagnostic Analysis of Non-Verbal Accuracy (DANVA) (n = 722), and the Emotional Triangles Task (n = 750).Results: Children at high-risk for ED showed poorer performance on measures of social cognition compared to children at low-risk. Maternal lifetime binge-eating, and maternal lifetime binging and purging were associated with poorer social communication in children (OR: 2.4, 95% CI: 1.0, 5.7, p = 0.05; and OR: 2.7, 95% CI: 1.1, 6.5, p = 0.03 respectively). Maternal binging and purging was also found to be associated with differential facial emotion processing and poorer recognition of fear from social motion cues (B: −0.7, 95% CI: −1.1, −0.2, p = 0.004).Discussion: Children at high-risk for ED showed slight differences in some areas of social cognition when compared to children at low-risk. Characteristic patterns in social cognition are present in children at high-risk for ED, particularly among children whose mothers have binge-eating and purging behaviors over the lifetime. Our findings support the hypothesis that these differences may be part of an intermediate phenotype for ED: perhaps contributing to development, or perhaps indexing a shared liability with psychiatric disorders characterized by abnormal social cognition.

Facial emotion recognition in childhood-onset bipolar I disorder: an evaluation of developmental differences between youths and adults.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe mental illness with high healthcare costs and poor outcomes. Increasing numbers of youths are diagnosed with BD, and many adults with BD report that their symptoms started in childhood, suggesting that BD can be a developmental disorder. Studies advancing our understanding of BD have shown alterations in facial emotion recognition both in children and adults with BD compared to healthy comparison (HC) participants, but none have evaluated the development of these deficits. To address this, we examined the effect of age on facial emotion recognition in a sample that included children and adults with confirmed childhood-onset type-I BD, with the adults having been diagnosed and followed since childhood by the Course and Outcome in Bipolar Youth study. Using the Diagnostic Analysis of Non-Verbal Accuracy, we compared facial emotion recognition errors among participants with BD (n=66; ages 7-26years) and HC participants (n=87; ages 7-25years). Complementary analyses investigated errors for child and adult faces. A significant diagnosis-by-age interaction indicated that younger BD participants performed worse than expected relative to HC participants their own age. The deficits occurred both for child and adult faces and were particularly strong for angry child faces, which were most often mistaken as sad. Our results were not influenced by medications, comorbidities/substance use, or mood state/global functioning. Younger individuals with BD are worse than their peers at this important social skill. This deficit may be an important developmentally salient treatment target - that is, for cognitive remediation to improve BD youths' emotion recognition abilities.

Preliminary evidence for the interaction of the oxytocin receptor gene (oxtr) and face processing in differentiating prenatal smoking patterns

Prenatal smoking cessation has been described as an empathic action “for the baby,” but this has not been empirically demonstrated. We capitalized on a genetically-characterized extant dataset with outstanding measurement of prenatal smoking patterns and maternal face processing data (as an indicator of empathy) to test this hypothesis, and explore how empathy and smoking patterns may be moderated by a genetic substrate of empathy, the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR). Participants were 143Caucasian women from the East Boston family study with repeated prospective reports of smoking level, adjusted based on repeated cotinine bioassays. Salivary DNA and face processing (Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2) were assessed 14 years later at an adolescent follow-up of offspring. Two-thirds of participants reported smoking prior to pregnancy recognition. Of these, 21% quit during pregnancy; 56% reduced smoking, and 22% smoked persistently at the same level. A significant interaction between face processing and OXTR variants previously associated with increased sensitivity to social context, rs53576GG and rs2254298A, was found (β=−.181; p=.015); greater ability to identify distress in others was associated with lower levels of smoking during pregnancy for rs53576(GG)/rs2254298(A) individuals (p=.013), but not for other genotypes (p=.892). Testing this “empathy hypothesis of prenatal smoking cessation” in larger studies designed to examine this question can elucidate whether interventions to enhance empathy can improve prenatal smoking cessation rates.

Emotion Identification From Facial Expressions in Children Adopted Internationally

Children adopted internationally who are exposed to institutional care receive less social interaction than children reared in families. These children spend their preadoptive life with individuals from their birth country and are adopted into families who may look and interact differently. The presumed patterns of limited social stimulation and transition from ethnically similar to ethnically and culturally different social interactions may affect these children's ability to accurately identify emotions from facial expressions. Thirty-five 4-year-old children adopted from Asia and Eastern Europe by U.S. families were compared with 33 nonadopted peers on the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy, Version 2 (DANVA2) Faces subtests. Correlation and regression analyses were completed with preadoption (adoption age, foster care exposure), postadoption environment (postadoption care duration, number of siblings, socioeconomic status), and individual (chronological age, gender, language competence) variables to determine related and predictive variables. The nonadopted group demonstrated better emotion identification than children internationally adopted, but no region-of-origin differences were found. English language performance was correlated with and predicted 20% of the variance in emotion identification of facial expressions on the DANVA2. Children adopted internationally who have stronger language ability tend to be more accurate in identifying emotions from facial expressions.

Recognition of facial and vocal affect following traumatic brain injury

Objective: Studies of facial affect recognition by people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) have shown this to be a significant problem. Vocal affect recognition also appears to be challenging for this population, but little is known about the degree to which one modality is impaired compared to the other. This study compared facial and vocal affect recognition of high and low intensity emotion expressions in people with moderate-to-severe TBI.Methods: The Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy-2 (Adult Faces; Voices) was administered to 203 participants with TBI.Results: Adults with TBI identified vocal emotion expressions with greater accuracy than facial emotion expressions. Facial affect recognition impairment was identified in 34% of participants, 22% were classified as having vocal affect recognition impairment and 15% showed impairment in both modalities. Participants were significantly less accurate at identifying low vs high intensity emotion expressions in both modalities. Happy facial expressions were significantly better identified than all other emotions. Errors were distributed across the emotion categories for vocal expressions.Conclusions: The degree of facial affect impairment was significantly greater than vocal affect impairment in this sample of people with moderate-to-severe TBI. Low intensity emotion expressions were particularly problematic and an advantage for positively valenced facial emotion expressions was indicated.

Accuracy in non-verbal emotional processing in children of parents diagnosed with bipolar disorder – preliminary results

Background: Children of parents diagnosed with bipolar disorder are at greater risk of developing bipolar disorder as well other axis I conditions. This increased risk is associated with deficits in frontal top-down regulatory pathways, involved with emotional processing and regulation. Previous research has also shown that depressive and anxiety-related symptoms in children at-risk have been linked to greater likelihood of developing bipolar disorder later on. Better understanding the deficits involved in this pathway during the progression of the disorder will help further our understanding of risk and the core psychopathology underlying bipolar disorder. The goal of our study is to compare performance during a nonverbal emotional labeling task between symptomatic high-risk bipolar offspring and children of healthy control parents. Methods: We plan to compare a total of 45 high-risk bipolar offspring with 15 healthy control participants during the well-validated Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) task. To date, 14 high-risk partially-affected offspring (average age = 13.7(2.9) years, 6 females) and 12 healthy control offspring (average age = 13.2(2.7) years, 8 females) have participated. Overall accuracy and type of error, including intensity and emotion, have been compared between groups using Mann-Whitney U tests. Similarly, we performed a secondary analysis using diagnosis of depression and anxiety-related disorders in high-risk offspring to compare performance on this task using Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test. Results: High-risk offspring were shown to have significant increase in total number of errors on both child and adult face subsections of the DANVA (p b 0.0001 for both). High-risk offspring performed worse when the emotional intensity of the face shown was low for both child and adult faces and interestingly, for high intensity faces in adults. High-risk offspring were also more likely to inaccurately label angry faces as well as fearful adult faces. During a secondary analysis, we compared high-risk offspring with depression (n = 7), anxiety-related disorders (n = 6) and healthy controls (n = 12) and found the labeling accuracy difference between the three groups during the identification of low intensity emotion in adult faces (p = 0.04) as well as when adults faces were expressing anger (p = 0.008). Conclusions: Our results provide further evidence that the DANVA can be used to examine the emotional labeling deficits in offspring at high risk to develop bipolar disorder. Such deficits may be part of the core psychopathology in bipolar disorder.

Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Social Communication and Emotion Recognition

ObjectiveTo investigate the association between autistic traits and emotion recognition in a large community sample of children using facial and social motion cues, additionally stratifying by gender.MethodA general population sample of 3,666 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) were assessed on their ability to correctly recognize emotions using the faces subtest of the Diagnostic Analysis of Non-Verbal Accuracy, and the Emotional Triangles Task, a novel test assessing recognition of emotion from social motion cues. Children with autistic-like social communication difficulties, as assessed by the Social Communication Disorders Checklist, were compared with children without such difficulties.ResultsAutistic-like social communication difficulties were associated with poorer recognition of emotion from social motion cues in both genders, but were associated with poorer facial emotion recognition in boys only (odds ratio = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.4, 2.6, p = .0001). This finding must be considered in light of lower power to detect differences in girls.ConclusionsIn this community sample of children, greater deficits in social communication skills are associated with poorer discrimination of emotions, implying there may be an underlying continuum of liability to the association between these characteristics. As a similar degree of association was observed in both genders on a novel test of social motion cues, the relatively good performance of girls on the more familiar task of facial emotion discrimination may be due to compensatory mechanisms. Our study might indicate the existence of a cognitive process by which girls with underlying autistic traits can compensate for their covert deficits in emotion recognition, although this would require further investigation.

Affect recognition across manic and euthymic phases of bipolar disorder in Han-Chinese patients

Patients with bipolar disorder (BD) have affect recognition deficits. Whether affect recognition deficits constitute a state or trait marker of BD has great etiopathological significance. The current study aims to explore the interrelationships between affect recognition and basic neurocognitive functions for patients with BD across different mood states, using the Diagnostic Analysis of Non-Verbal Accuracy-2, Taiwanese version (DANVA-2-TW) as the index measure for affect recognition. To our knowledge, this is the first study examining affect recognition deficits of BPD across mood states in the Han Chinese population.Twenty-nine manic patients, 16 remitted patients with BD, and 40 control subjects are included in the study. Distinct association patterns between affect recognition and neurocognitive functions are demonstrated for patients with BD and control subjects, implicating alternations in emotion associated neurocognitive processing. Compared to control subjects, manic patients but not remitted subjects perform significantly worse in the recognition of negative emotions as a whole and specifically anger, after adjusting for differences in general intellectual ability and basic neurocognitive functions. Affect recognition deficit may be a relatively independent impairment in BD rather than consequences arising from deficits in other basic neurocognition. The impairments of manic patients in the recognition of negative emotions, specifically anger, may further our understanding of core clinical psychopathology of BD and have implications in treating bipolar patients across distinct mood phases.