Exploring the Use of Isolated Expressions and Film Clips to Evaluate Emotion Recognition by People with Traumatic Brain Injury
May 15th, 2016
This paper describes how to implement a battery of behavioral tasks to examine emotion recognition of isolated facial and vocal emotion expressions, and a novel task using commercial television and film clips to assess multimodal emotion recognition that includes contextual cues.
The overall goal of this experiment is to compare recognition of isolated and multimodal emotion expressions by people with and without traumatic brain injury. This method can help answer key questions in the field of traumatic brain injury such as, do people with traumatic brain injury have difficulty recognizing emotion in every day situations because of the difficulty they have processing multiple cues simultaneously? The main advantage of this method is that it includes cues that would be generally available in every day situations.
Such as non-verbal cues of the face and the voice, and also situational cues. Helping to demonstrate the procedure will be Miranda Wayland, a research assistant in my laboratory. Begin by having the participant sit in front of a computer with a clear view of the screen.
Give each participant a clip board with the DANVA-Faces response sheet attached. Next, open the DANVA-Faces task in the presentation software and play it using the slideshow view. Inform the participant that they will see a series of human faces on the screen.
Ask them to determine whether the person is happy, sad, angry, or fearful and indicate their answer by circling it on the response sheet. If they are unsure, respond with I don't know. Start the task with two practice trials in order for the participant to get a sense of the timing of the task.
Ensure that the participant is looking up at the screen. Then, when the face disappears hit enter on the keyboard to move to the next stimulus. Finally, once the practice trials are complete, hit enter to begin the test trials.
Continue to hit enter after each stimulus until all 24 stimuli have been presented. After completion, collect the participant's response sheet. Begin by sitting the participant in front of the computer.
Provide them with the DANVA-Voices response sheet. Next, open the DANVA-Voices task by going to the following website. Enter any letter for the login, and type EMORYDANVA2 for the password.
Then, click on the green circle in the center of the screen. Inform the participant that they will hear a person say I'm going out of the room now, but I'll be back later. Ask them to determine whether the person sounds happy, sad, angry, or fearful and indicate their answer by circling it on the response sheet.
If they are unsure of the emotion choose I don't know. Finally, click fearful and next to advance to the next sentence. After presenting all 24 sentences, collect the response sheet.
Begin by sitting the participant in front of the computer, and provide them with the emotional film clip response sheet. Instruct the participant to pay attention to which emotion they think the character in the film clip is expressing, happy, sad, angry, fearful, or neutral and to report their answer on the response sheet. Open the folder on the computer for the assigned order of the film clip presentation.
Click 01 to open the first film clip. Tell the participant which character to focus on while viewing the clip. Select View full screen to play the clip.
Once the clip has finished playing, ask the participant to answer the questions on the response sheet. Finally, after presenting all 15 film clips, collect the response sheet. In this experiment, participants with TBI were significantly less accurate than controls for recognition of static and vocal emotional expressions.
Although TBI participants were able to recognize positive emotion expressions similarly to controls, they had significantly more difficulty recognizing negative facial and vocal emotion expressions. Furthermore, compared to controls, people with TBI also had significantly more difficulty identifying fearful faces in film clips, and labeling neutral film clips as neutral. Once mastered this technique can be done in 45 to 50 minutes if performed properly.
While attempting this procedure it's important to inquire about any visual processing difficulties, or fine motor difficulties for people with TBI, so you can seat them accordingly or give them an alternative response format if needed. Following this procedure other methods like playing the film clips with and without the video or with and without the audio can be performed in order to answer additional questions, like which cues are most facilitative and which cues are most problematic when interpreting emotion? After watching this video you should have a good understanding of how to use film clips to assess how people with and without TBI respond to multimodal cues of emotion.
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Overview
This study investigates the recognition of isolated and multimodal emotion expressions in individuals with and without traumatic brain injury. It utilizes a novel approach that incorporates everyday situational cues to enhance the understanding of emotional processing difficulties in these populations.
Key Study Components
Area of Science
- Neuroscience
- Behavioral Psychology
- Traumatic Brain Injury
Background
- Emotion recognition is crucial for social interactions.
- Traumatic brain injury can impair emotional processing.
- Multimodal cues are often present in real-life situations.
- This study aims to assess the impact of these cues on emotion recognition.
Purpose of Study
- To compare recognition of isolated vs. multimodal emotions.
- To explore difficulties faced by individuals with traumatic brain injury.
- To utilize everyday cues in assessing emotional recognition.
Methods Used
- Participants view isolated facial and vocal emotion expressions.
- Participants engage with commercial television and film clips.
- Assessment of recognition accuracy in various contexts.
- Comparison between individuals with and without traumatic brain injury.
Main Results
- Differences in emotion recognition accuracy between groups.
- Impact of multimodal cues on recognition performance.
- Insights into everyday emotional processing challenges.
- Potential implications for rehabilitation strategies.
Conclusions
- Individuals with traumatic brain injury may struggle with multimodal emotion recognition.
- Incorporating everyday cues can enhance assessment methods.
- Further research is needed to develop targeted interventions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Executive Industry Relevance
This method evaluates emotion recognition using isolated and multimodal stimuli to model real-world social cue processing, relevant for assessing neuropsychological endpoints in CNS drug development. It supports target validation by quantifying deficits in emotional processing domains affected by traumatic brain injury, informing mechanistic de-risking of therapeutic candidates. The approach enables phenotypic screening of interventions aimed at improving social cognition, a key translational biomarker in neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
Strategic Applications in Biopharma R&D
Early Discovery & Target Validation
- Scientific Value: Interrogates therapeutic hypotheses related to emotional processing pathways disrupted in TBI.
- Operational Value: Provides quantitative readouts of emotion recognition accuracy across isolated facial, vocal, and multimodal cues.
- Scientific Value: Enables biological de-risking by isolating contributions of specific sensory modalities to emotional perception deficits.
Screening & Assay Development
- Scientific Value: Prepares validated behavioral assays for downstream screening of compounds targeting social cognition.
- Operational Value: Standardizes stimulus presentation and response collection to ensure reproducibility across testing sites.
- Scientific Value: Generates quantitative dependent variables (accuracy, intensity ratings) enabling dose-response and comparative efficacy analysis.
Translational & Preclinical Research
- Scientific Value: Aligns with disease-relevant systems by modeling real-life emotional challenges in TBI populations.
- Operational Value: Supports continuity from discovery through preclinical validation via consistent multimodal assessment paradigms.
- Scientific Value: Facilitates risk-adjusted advancement decisions by identifying compounds that improve multimodal cue integration.
Pipeline & Workflow Integration
The method fits within the discovery continuum from target validation through lead identification to preclinical evaluation, particularly for CNS therapeutics targeting social and emotional dysfunction.
- Discovery Biology: Supports hypothesis testing on neural mechanisms underlying emotion recognition deficits in TBI.
- Screening: Delivers assay-ready, reproducible behavioral outputs for evaluating compound effects on emotional processing.
- Analytics: Provides measurable endpoints including recognition accuracy and emotional intensity ratings for cross-group comparisons.
- Translational Research: Connects to preclinical continuity by modeling emotional processing challenges relevant to clinical outcomes.
- Enterprise Reuse: Establishes a reusable behavioral platform for assessing social cognition across neuropsychiatric indications.
Operational & Enterprise Impact
- Scientific Value: Enhances predictive confidence in target engagement by quantifying domain-specific emotional processing improvements.
- Operational Value: Ensures standardization and scalability of emotion recognition testing across diverse participant populations.
- Strategic Value: Improves go/no-go decisions by reducing late-stage failure risk due to unaddressed social cognition deficits.
- Portfolio Impact: Enables risk-based prioritization of candidates demonstrating efficacy in multimodal emotional processing.
Implementation Considerations
- Requires expertise in neuropsychological assessment and emotional processing paradigms.
- Depends on computer-based stimulus delivery and response collection infrastructure.
- Necessitates standardized training for administrators to ensure consistent stimulus presentation and timing.
- Involves adaptation considerations for motor or sensory impairments in TBI populations, such as alternative response formats.
- Limited by the need for controlled environments to minimize distractions during multimodal stimulus viewing.
