Emotion Recognition In Adults Research Articles

Structural brain changes inemotion recognition across the adult lifespan.

Emotion recognition (ER) declines with increasing age, yet little is known whether this observation is based on structural brain changes conveyed by differential atrophy. To investigate whether age-related ER decline correlates with reduced grey matter (GM) volume in emotion-related brain regions, we conducted a voxel-based morphometry analysis using data of the Human Connectome Project-Aging (N = 238, aged 36-87) in which facial ER was tested. We expected to find brain regions that show an additive or super-additive age-related change in GM volume indicating atrophic processes that reduce ER in older adults. The data did not support our hypotheses after correction for multiple comparisons. Exploratory analyses with a threshold of P < 0.001 (uncorrected), however, suggested that relationships between GM volume and age-related general ER may be widely distributed across the cortex. Yet, small effect sizes imply that only a small fraction of the decline of ER in older adults can be attributed to local GM volume changes in single voxels or their multivariate patterns.

Facial affect recognition in context in adults with and without TBI.

Several studies have reported impaired emotion recognition in adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI), but studies have two major design features that limit application of results to real-world contexts: (1) participants choose from among lists of basic emotions, rather than generating emotion labels, and (2) images are typically presented in isolation rather than in context. To address these limitations, we created an open-labeling task with faces shown alone or in real-life scenes, to more closely approximate how adults with TBI label facial emotions beyond the lab. Participants were 55 adults (29 female) with moderate to severe TBI and 55 uninjured comparison peers, individually matched for race, sex, and age. Participants viewed 60 photographs of faces, either alone or in the pictured person's real-life context, and were asked what that person was feeling. We calculated the percent of responses that were standard forced-choice-task options, and also used sentiment intensity analysis to compare verbal responses between the two groups. We tracked eye movements for a subset of participants, to explore whether gaze duration or number of fixations helped explain any group differences in labels. Over 50% of responses in both groups were words other than basic emotions on standard affect tasks, highlighting the importance of eliciting open-ended responses. Valence of labels by participants with TBI was attenuated relative to valence of Comparison group labels, i.e., TBI group responses were less positive to positive images and the same was true for negative images, although the TBI group responses had higher lexical diversity. There were no significant differences in gaze duration or number of fixations between groups. Results revealed qualitative differences in affect labels between adults with and without TBI that would not have emerged on standard forced-choice tasks. Verbal differences did not appear to be attributable to differences in gaze patterns, leaving open the question of mechanisms of atypical affect processing in adults with TBI.

Investigating the impact of disposable surgical face-masks on face identity and emotion recognition in adults with autism spectrum disorder.

With the outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic, disposable surgical face-masks (DSFMs) have been widely adopted as a preventive measure. DSFMs hide the bottom half of the face, thus making identity and emotion recognition very challenging, both in typical and atypical populations. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often characterized by face processing deficits; thus, DSFMs could pose even a greater challenge for this population compared to typically development (TD) individuals. In this study, 48 ASDs of level 1 and 110 TDs underwent two tasks: (i) the Old-new face memory task, which assesses whether DSFMs affect face learning and recognition, and (ii) the Facial affect task, which explores DSFMs' effect on emotion recognition. Results from the former show that, when faces were learned without DSFMs, identity recognition of masked faces decreased for both ASDs and TDs. In contrast, when faces were first learned with DSFMs, TDs but not ASDs benefited from a "context congruence" effect, that is, faces wearing DSFMs were better recognized if learned wearing DSFMs. In addition, results from the Facial affect task show that DSFMs negatively impacted specific emotion recognition in both TDs and ASDs, although differentially between the two groups. DSFMs negatively affected disgust, happiness and sadness recognition in TDs; in contrast, ASDs performance decreased for every emotion except anger. Overall, our study demonstrates a general, although different, disruptive effect on identity and emotion recognition both in ASD and TD population.

Theory of mind and facial emotion recognition in adults with temporal lobe epilepsy: A meta-analysis.

BackgroundMounting studies have investigated impairments in social cognitive domains (including theory of mind [ToM] and facial emotion recognition [FER] in adult patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). However, to date, inconsistent findings remain.MethodsA search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases was conducted until December 2021. Hedges g effect sizes were computed with a random-effects model. Meta-regressions were used to assess the potential confounding factors of between-study variability in effect sizes.ResultsThe meta-analysis included 41 studies, with a combined sample of 1,749 adult patients with TLE and 1,324 healthy controls (HCs). Relative to HCs, adult patients with TLE showed large impairments in ToM (g = −0.92) and cognitive ToM (g = −0.92), followed by medium impairments in affective ToM (g = −0.79) and FER (g = −0.77). Besides, no (statistically) significant differences were observed between the magnitude of social cognition impairment in adult with TLE who underwent and those who did not undergo epilepsy surgery. Meta-regressions exhibited that greater severity of executive functioning was associated with more severe ToM defects, and older age was associated with more severe FER defects.ConclusionsResults of this meta-analysis suggest that adult patients with TLE show differential impairments in the core aspects of social cognitive domains (including ToM and FER), which may help in planning individualized treatment with appropriate cognitive and behavioral interventions.

Altered subcortical and cortical brain morphology in adult women with 47,XXX: a 7-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging study

BackgroundTriple X syndrome (47,XXX) is a relatively common sex chromosomal aneuploidy characterized by the presence of a supernumerary X chromosome in females and has been associated with a variable cognitive, behavioural and psychiatric phenotype. 47,XXX may serve as a suitable model for studying the effect of genetic architecture on brain morphology. Previous studies have shown alterations in brain structure in 47,XXX particularly in childhood and adolescence. In this study, we examined subcortical and cortical brain morphology in adult women with 47,XXX using ultra-high field 7T MRI. Given previous evidence of impaired social functioning and emotion recognition in adults with 47,XXX, we also investigated the relationship of these functions with brain morphology.MethodsTwenty-one adult women with 47,XXX and 22 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were included. Structural T1-weighted images were acquired using a 7-Tesla magnetic resonance scanner. Measures of subcortical brain volumes, cortical surface area and thickness, and cortical folding were obtained and compared between the groups using general linear models. Additionally, we examined potential relationships between brain outcome measures and social functioning and social cognition in 47,XXX using correlation analyses.ResultsAdults with 47,XXX showed lower volumes of the thalamus, caudate, putamen, hippocampus, nucleus accumbens and pallidum, and larger lateral ventricle volumes. Lower surface area was found in the superior frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus in 47,XXX participants compared to healthy controls. Altered cortical thickness and cortical folding were not present in 47,XXX. Cortical thickness was associated with social cognition in 47,XXX.ConclusionsResults suggest that a supernumerary X chromosome in females affects subcortical and lateral ventricle volumes, and cortical surface area in adulthood. 47,XXX may serve as a suitable model for studying genetic influences on structural brain morphology across developmental stages in order to understand neurobiological mechanisms underlying cognitive and behavioural impairments.

Emotion Recognition in Adults With a History of Childhood Maltreatment: A Systematic Review

Child maltreatment has many well-documented lasting effects on children. Among its consequences, it affects children’s recognition of emotions. More and more studies are recognizing the lasting effect that a history of maltreatment can have on emotion recognition. A systematic literature review was conducted to better understand this relationship. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol was used and four databases were searched, MEDLINE/PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and FRANCIS, using three cross-referenced key words: child abuse, emotion recognition, and adults. The search process identified 23 studies that met the inclusion criteria. The review highlights the wide variety of measures used to assess child maltreatment as well as the different protocols used to measure emotion recognition. The results indicate that adults with a history of childhood maltreatment show a differentiated reaction to happiness, anger, and fear. Happiness is less detected, whereas negative emotions are recognized more rapidly and at a lower intensity compared to adults not exposed to such traumatic events. Emotion recognition is also related to greater brain activation for the maltreated group. However, the results are less consistent for adults who also have a diagnosis of mental health problems. The systematic review found that maltreatment affects the perception of emotions expressed on both adult and child faces. However, more research is needed to better understand how a history of maltreatment is related to adults’ perception of children’s emotions.

Social functioning and emotion recognition in adults with triple X syndrome

Triple X syndrome (TXS) is caused by aneuploidy of the X chromosome and is associated with impaired social functioning in children; however, its effect on social functioning and emotion recognition in adults is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate social functioning and emotion recognition in adults with TXS. This cross-sectional cohort study was designed to compare social functioning and emotion recognition between adults with TXS (n = 34) and an age-matched control group (n = 31). Social functioning was assessed with the Adult Behavior Checklist and Social Responsiveness Scale for Adults. Emotion recognition was assessed with the Emotion Recognition Task in the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. Differences were analysed by Mann-Whitney U-test. Compared with controls, women with TXS scored higher on the Adult Behavior Checklist, including the Withdrawn scale (P < 0.001, effect size 0.4) and Thought Problems scale (P < 0.001, effect size 0.4); and higher on the Social Responsiveness Scale for Adults, indicating impaired social functioning (P < 0.001, effect size 0.5). In addition, women with TXS performed worse on the Emotion Recognition Task, particularly with respect to recognising sadness (P < 0.005, effect size 0.4), fear (P < 0.01, effect size 0.4) and disgust (P < 0.02, effect size 0.3). Our findings indicate that adults with TXS have a higher prevalence of impaired social functioning and emotion recognition. These results highlight the relevance of sex chromosome aneuploidy as a potential model for studying disorders characterised by social impairments such as autism spectrum disorder, particularly among women.

Facial Imitation Improves Emotion Recognition in Adults with Different Levels of Sub-Clinical Autistic Traits.

We used computer-based automatic expression analysis to investigate the impact of imitation on facial emotion recognition with a baseline-intervention-retest design. The participants: 55 young adults with varying degrees of autistic traits, completed an emotion recognition task with images of faces displaying one of six basic emotional expressions. This task was then repeated with instructions to imitate the expressions. During the experiment, a camera captured the participants’ faces for an automatic evaluation of their imitation performance. The instruction to imitate enhanced imitation performance as well as emotion recognition. Of relevance, emotion recognition improvements in the imitation block were larger in people with higher levels of autistic traits, whereas imitation enhancements were independent of autistic traits. The finding that an imitation instruction improves emotion recognition, and that imitation is a positive within-participant predictor of recognition accuracy in the imitation block supports the idea of a link between motor expression and perception in the processing of emotions, which might be mediated by the mirror neuron system. However, because there was no evidence that people with higher autistic traits differ in their imitative behavior per se, their disproportional emotion recognition benefits could have arisen from indirect effects of imitation instructions

Neural Basis of Impaired Emotion Recognition in Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

BackgroundDeficits in emotion recognition have been repeatedly documented in patients diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but their neural basis is unknown so far. MethodsIn the current study, adult patients with ADHD (n = 44) and healthy control subjects (n = 43) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during explicit emotion recognition of stimuli expressing affective information in face, voice, or face–voice combinations. The employed experimental paradigm allowed us to delineate areas for processing audiovisual information based on their functional activation profile, including the bilateral posterior superior temporal gyrus/middle temporal gyrus, amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and precuneus, as well as the right posterior thalamus. ResultsAs expected, unbiased hit rates for correct classification of the expressed emotions were lower in patients with ADHD than in healthy control subjects irrespective of the presented sensory modality. This deficit at a behavioral level was accompanied by lower activation in patients with ADHD versus healthy control subjects in the cortex adjacent to the right superior temporal gyrus/middle temporal gyrus and the right posterior thalamus, which represent key areas for processing socially relevant signals and their integration across modalities. A cortical region adjacent to the right posterior superior temporal gyrus was the only brain region that showed a significant correlation between brain activation and emotion identification performance. ConclusionsAltogether, these results provide the first evidence for a potential neural substrate of the observed impairments in emotion recognition in adults with ADHD.

The Impact of a Novel Mimicry Task for Increasing Emotion Recognition in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Alexithymia: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

BackgroundImpaired facial emotion expression recognition (FEER) has typically been considered a correlate of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Now, the alexithymia hypothesis is suggesting that this emotion processing problem is instead related to alexithymia, which frequently co-occurs with ASD. By combining predictive coding theories of ASD and simulation theories of emotion recognition, it is suggested that facial mimicry may improve the training of FEER in ASD and alexithymia.ObjectiveThis study aims to evaluate a novel mimicry task to improve FEER in adults with and without ASD and alexithymia. Additionally, this study will aim to determine the contributions of alexithymia and ASD to FEER ability and assess which of these 2 populations benefit from this training task.MethodsRecruitment will primarily take place through an ASD community group with emphasis put on snowball recruiting. Included will be 64 consenting adults equally divided between participants without an ASD and participants with an ASD. Participants will be screened online using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10; cut-off score of 22), Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-10), and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) followed by a clinical interview with a provisional psychologist at the Federation University psychology clinic. The clinical interview will include assessment of ability, anxiety, and depression as well as discussion of past ASD diagnosis and confirmatory administration of the Autism Mental Status Exam (AMSE). Following the clinical interview, the participant will complete the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) and then undertake a baseline assessment of FEER. Consenting participants will then be assigned using a permuted blocked randomization method into either the control task condition or the mimicry task condition. A brief measure of satisfaction of the task and a debriefing session will conclude the study.ResultsThe study has Federation University Human Research Ethics Committee approval and is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials. Participant recruitment is predicted to begin in the third quarter of 2021.ConclusionsThis study will be the first to evaluate the use of a novel facial mimicry task condition to increase FEER in adults with ASD and alexithymia. If efficacious, this task could prove useful as a cost-effective adjunct intervention that could be used at home and thus remove barriers to entry. This study will also explore the unique effectiveness of this task in people without an ASD, with an ASD, and with alexithymia.Trial RegistrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry ACTRN12619000705189p; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=377455International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)PRR1-10.2196/24543

Assessing the Effectiveness of Automated Emotion Recognition in Adults and Children for Clinical Investigation.

Recent success stories in automated object or face recognition, partly fuelled by deep learning artificial neural network (ANN) architectures, have led to the advancement of biometric research platforms and, to some extent, the resurrection of Artificial Intelligence (AI). In line with this general trend, inter-disciplinary approaches have been taken to automate the recognition of emotions in adults or children for the benefit of various applications, such as identification of children's emotions prior to a clinical investigation. Within this context, it turns out that automating emotion recognition is far from being straightforward, with several challenges arising for both science (e.g., methodology underpinned by psychology) and technology (e.g., the iMotions biometric research platform). In this paper, we present a methodology and experiment and some interesting findings, which raise the following research questions for the recognition of emotions and attention in humans: (a) the adequacy of well-established techniques such as the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), (b) the adequacy of state-of-the-art biometric research platforms, (c) the extent to which emotional responses may be different in children and adults. Our findings and first attempts to answer some of these research questions are based on a mixed sample of adults and children who took part in the experiment, resulting in a statistical analysis of numerous variables. These are related to both automatically and interactively captured responses of participants to a sample of IAPS pictures.

Effects of Age and Hearing Loss on the Recognition of Emotions in Speech.

Emotional communication is a cornerstone of social cognition and informs human interaction. Previous studies have shown deficits in facial and vocal emotion recognition in older adults, particularly for negative emotions. However, few studies have examined combined effects of aging and hearing loss on vocal emotion recognition by adults. The objective of this study was to compare vocal emotion recognition in adults with hearing loss relative to age-matched peers with normal hearing. We hypothesized that age would play a role in emotion recognition and that listeners with hearing loss would show deficits across the age range. Thirty-two adults (22 to 74 years of age) with mild to severe, symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss, amplified with bilateral hearing aids and 30 adults (21 to 75 years of age) with normal hearing, participated in the study. Stimuli consisted of sentences spoken by 2 talkers, 1 male, 1 female, in 5 emotions (angry, happy, neutral, sad, and scared) in an adult-directed manner. The task involved a single-interval, five-alternative forced-choice paradigm, in which the participants listened to individual sentences and indicated which of the five emotions was targeted in each sentence. Reaction time was recorded as an indirect measure of cognitive load. Results showed significant effects of age. Older listeners had reduced accuracy, increased reaction times, and reduced d' values. Normal hearing listeners showed an Age by Talker interaction where older listeners had more difficulty identifying male vocal emotion. Listeners with hearing loss showed reduced accuracy, increased reaction times, and lower d' values compared with age-matched normal-hearing listeners. Within the group with hearing loss, age and talker effects were significant, and low-frequency pure-tone averages showed a marginally significant effect. Contrary to other studies, once hearing thresholds were taken into account, no effects of listener sex were observed, nor were there effects of individual emotions on accuracy. However, reaction times and d' values showed significant differences between individual emotions. The results of this study confirm existing findings in the literature showing that older adults show significant deficits in voice emotion recognition compared with their normally hearing peers, and that among listeners with normal hearing, age-related changes in hearing do not predict this age-related deficit. The present results also add to the literature by showing that hearing impairment contributes additionally to deficits in vocal emotion recognition, separate from deficits related to age. These effects of age and hearing loss appear to be quite robust, being evident in reduced accuracy scores and d' measures, as well as in reaction time measures.

Spanish validation of the “Reading the Mind in the Voice” task: A study of complex emotion recognition in adults with autism spectrum conditions

BackgroundSocial cognition includes a range of cognitive processes that help individuals understand how others think and feel. Recent proposals outline the relevance of this cognitive domain in a broad set of clinical pictures, as well as its diagnostic and prognostic value. In this study, we present the Spanish validation of the Reading the Mind in the Voice (RMV-SV) task, (Rutherford et al., 2002), an instrument for the recognition of mental states and complex emotions through prosody. MethodA group of adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD, n = 45) were compared to a control group from the general population (n = 51) in several emotion-recognition tasks. ResultsThe ASD group performed worse than controls overall on complex emotion and mental state recognition from voices (ŋ2 = .322; p < .01), statistically significant differences were found on 18/33 specific emotions. A positive correlation was found between verbal and nonverbal IQ and emotion recognition task scores. Using RMV-SV scores, 87.5% of the participants were correctly allocated to their original condition group. ConclusionsThe results confirmed the alteration of the recognition of mental states and complex emotions by prosody among adults diagnosed with ASD. The RMV-SV showed suitable validity and reliability indexes, so the adapted task could facilitate the evaluation of complex emotion recognition through prosody in Spanish.

Atypical Visual Processing but Comparable Levels of Emotion Recognition in Adults with Autism During the Processing of Social Scenes.

Understanding the underlying visual scanning patterns of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during the processing of complex emotional scenes remains limited. This study compared the complex emotion recognition performance of adults with ASD (n = 23) and matched neurotypical participants (n = 25) using the Reading the Mind in Films Task. Behaviourally, both groups exhibited similar emotion recognition accuracy. Visual fixation time towards key social regions of each stimuli was examined via eye tracking. Individuals with ASD demonstrated significantly longer fixation time towards the non-social areas. No group differences were evident for the facial and body regions of all characters in the social scenes. The findings provide evidence of the heterogeneity associated with complex emotion processing in individuals with ASD.

Emotional Recognition and Empathy both in Deaf and Blind Adults.

Studies addressing the recognition of emotions in blind or deaf participants have been carried out only with children and adolescents. Due to these age limits, such studies do not clarify the long-term effects of vision and hearing disabilities on emotion recognition in adults. We assessed the ability to recognize basic emotions in 15 deaf adults (aged 32.4 ± 8.1 yrs) and in 15 blind adults (48.3 ± 10.5 yrs). Auditory and visual stimuli expressing six basic emotional states were presented to participants (Florida Affect Battery). Participants also performed an empathy test. Deaf participants showed difficulties in emotion recognition tasks compared to the typical hearing participants; however, differences were only statistically reliable for Facial Emotion Discrimination and Naming tasks (specifically, naming expressions of fear). Deaf participants also revealed inferior levels of cognitive empathy. Concerning blind participants, their performance was lower than the controls' only when the task required the evaluation of emotional prosody while ignoring the semantic content of the sentence. Overall, although deaf and blind participants performed reasonably well on tasks requiring recognition of basic emotions, sensory loss may hinder their social perception skills when processing subtle emotions or when the extraction of simultaneous prosodic and semantic information is required.

The association between childhood trauma and facial emotion recognition in adults with bipolar disorder

Many patients with bipolar disorder (BD) have difficulties in facial emotion recognition, which may also be impaired in maltreated children and in subjects who have a positive history of childhood traumatic experiences. Childhood trauma is reported with a high prevalence in BD and it is considered a risk factor for the disorder. As the relationship between facial emotion recognition and childhood trauma in BD has not yet been directly investigated, in this study we examined whether the presence of a childhood trauma in affectively stable BD patients was associated with poorer performance in emotion recognition. Seventy-five BD I and II participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire retrospectively assessing five types of childhood trauma (emotional, physical and sexual abuse, and emotional and physical neglect) and the Emotion Recognition Task evaluating the ability to correctly identify six basic facial emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and surprise). Our results suggest that the presence of childhood trauma in participants with BD is associated with a more severe clinical presentation (earlier onset, longer duration of illness, and higher depressive symptom ratings) and that BD patients with a positive childhood history of emotional neglect perform worse than those without such a history in recognizing anger.

Testing Complex Emotion Recognition in Adults: A Gendered Comparison

Determining the integrity of emotion recognition in adults is important to our understanding of facial expressions and the learning of social skills. This study implements a new set of tasks, testing 109 individuals in Saudi Arabia with the use of the Cambridge Mindreading (CAM) Test. The test was applied to adult males and females. Results showed how people performed with regard to emotion recognition displayed by other faces. The implications of the test results will help people know their level of understanding regarding the facial expressions of others before ascertaining the appropriate suggestions, and to make the test suit our society. Additionally, this study focuses on the extent to which a person can understand the facial expressions of the people around them, and also this test can be used to help to diagnose if people suffer from Asperger autism. The authors provide a review of previous studies and a description of the approach that the authors follow, as well as concluding observations. This paper compares male and females reading facial expressions in Saudi Arabia, the result shows a significant difference between male and female participants.

Spatiotemporal dipole source localization of face processing ERPs in adolescents: a preliminary study

BackgroundDespite extensive investigation of the neural systems for face perception and emotion recognition in adults and young children in the past, the precise temporal activation of brain sources specific to the processing of emotional facial expressions in older children and adolescents is not well known. This preliminary study aims to trace the spatiotemporal dynamics of facial emotion processing during adolescence and provide a basis for future developmental studies and comparisons with patient populations that have social-emotional deficits such as autism.MethodsWe presented pictures showing happy, angry, fearful, or neutral facial expressions to healthy adolescents (aged 10–16 years) and recorded 128-channel event-related potentials (ERPs) while they performed an emotion discrimination task. ERP components were analyzed for effects of age and emotion on amplitude and latency. The underlying cortical sources of scalp ERP activity were modeled as multiple equivalent current dipoles using Brain Electrical Source Analysis (BESA).ResultsInitial global/holistic processing of faces (P1) took place in the visual association cortex (lingual gyrus) around 120 ms post-stimulus. Next, structural encoding of facial features (N170) occurred between 160–200 ms in the inferior temporal/fusiform region, and perhaps early emotion processing (Vertex Positive Potential or VPP) in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex. Finally, cognitive analysis of facial expressions (P2) in the prefrontal cortex and emotional reactions in somatosensory areas were observed from about 230 ms onwards. The temporal sequence of cortical source activation in response to facial emotion processing was occipital, prefrontal, fusiform, parietal for young adolescents and occipital, limbic, inferior temporal, and prefrontal for older adolescents.ConclusionThis is a first report of high-density ERP dipole source analysis in healthy adolescents which traces the sequence of neural activity within the first 500 ms of categorizing emotion from faces. Our spatio-temporal brain source models showed the presence of adult-like cortical networks for face processing in adolescents, whose functional specificity to different emotions appear to be not yet fully mature. Age-related differences in brain activation patterns illustrate the continued development and maturation of distinct neural systems for processing facial expressions during adolescence and possible changes in emotion perception, experience, and reaction with age.

Face Processing and Facial Emotion Recognition in Adults With Down Syndrome

Face processing and facial expression recognition was investigated in 17 adults with Down syndrome, and results were compared with those of a child control group matched for receptive vocabulary. On the tasks involving faces without emotional content, the adults with Down syndrome performed significantly worse than did the controls. However, their performance was good on the tests with complete faces. On the facial expression tasks, participants with Down syndrome exhibited particular difficulties with the neutral and surprised expressions. Analysis of their error pattern suggest they had a tendency to judge faces more positively than did the controls. Finally, there were significant relationships among emotional processing, receptive vocabulary, and inhibition measures; nonverbal reasoning ability was not related to any of the tasks.

The ‘Reading the Mind in the Voice’ Test-Revised: A Study of Complex Emotion Recognition in Adults with and Without Autism Spectrum Conditions

This study reports a revised version of the 'Reading the Mind in the Voice' (RMV) task. The original task (Rutherford et al., (2002), Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 32, 189-194) suffered from ceiling effects and limited sensitivity. To improve that, the task was shortened and two more foils were added to each of the remaining items. About 50 adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) or High Functioning Autism (HFA) and 22 matched controls took the revised task. Results show the revised task has good reliability and validity, is harder, and more sensitive in distinguishing the AS/HFA group from controls. Verbal IQ was positively correlated with performance, and females performed worse than males in the AS/HFA group. Results are discussed with regard to multi modal empathizing deficits in autism spectrum conditions (ASC).