The Emotion Recognition Task (ERT) assesses the perception of emotional facial expressions.

Purpose

The ERT is a neuropsychological test that can be used to measure the ability to recognise emotions in facial expressions. This ability forms part of social cognition, and more specifically of emotion perception. The ERT is used to gain insight into how well a person can perceive and interpret the emotional signals of others. The test was developed as a tool within psychodiagnostics to identify possible problems in social information processing. Correctly recognising emotions plays an important role in social interaction, empathy, and understanding the behaviour of others. The results of the ERT can help professionals to better understand the extent to which a person has difficulty interpreting emotional facial expressions, and can contribute to hypothesis formulation within a broader diagnostic process.

Application

The ERT is used within (neuro)psychological assessment to evaluate the ability to recognise emotions in faces. The instrument is often used when there are questions regarding social cognition or social information processing. Among other things, the test is used in the assessment of individuals with conditions in which problems with emotion recognition may occur, such as autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, brain injury, or certain neurological disorders. In addition, the ERT can be applied in the assessment of social functioning and empathic ability. The test is usually administered as part of a broader diagnostic assessment. The results are therefore not interpreted in isolation, but always in combination with other diagnostic information, such as interviews, observations, and additional tests. This makes it possible to obtain a more complete picture of a person’s social-cognitive functioning. The test is administered individually by psychologists, neuropsychologists, or other diagnostically trained professionals.

What the test measures

The ERT measures the ability to recognise and correctly identify basic emotions in facial expressions. During the task, participants view short video clips of faces that gradually change from a neutral expression to an emotional expression. The intensity of the facial expressions increases progressively and is divided into four levels: 0–40%, 0–60%, 0–80%, and 0–100%. As a result, the emotions are more difficult to recognise at the beginning of the test than later in the task. After each stimulus, the person chooses the best-fitting emotion from six possibilities, namely:

1. Anger
2. Disgust
3. Happy
4. Sad
5. Surprise
6. Fear

Performance is evaluated using various outcome measures. First, raw subscores are calculated for each emotion and for each intensity level. Next, a raw total score is calculated for each emotion by summing the correct responses across intensity levels. Finally, a total ERT score is calculated by summing all raw total scores across emotions. For the raw total scores and the total ERT score, percentiles are calculated based on residual scores. These are calculated by subtracting the expected scores (based on linear regression) from the observed scores. To determine the regression formulas, children and adults are analysed as separate groups.

Norms

The ERT was standardised on the basis of a sample of 418 healthy volunteers aged 8 to 88 years. The group of children and adolescents (8-17 years; N = 163) was recruited in the Netherlands and Ireland. The adult group (18-88 years; N = 255) was recruited in the Netherlands, Australia, Ireland, and Germany. In the derivation of the normative data, age and cognitive background variables were taken into account, such as IQ in children and educational level in adults. Expected scores were determined using linear regression analysis, with children and adults analysed separately in order to establish the regression formulas.

References

• Montagne, B., Kessels, R.P.C., De Haan, E.H.F., & Perrett, D.I. (2007). The Emotion Recognition Task: a paradigm to measure the perception of facial emotional expressions at different intensities. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 104(2), 589–598.
• Kessels, R.P.C., Montagne, B., Hendriks, A.W., Perrett, D.I, & De Haan, E.H.F. (2014). Assessment of perception of morphed facial expressions using the Emotion Recognition Task (ERT): Normative data from healthy participants aged 8-75. Journal of Neuropsychology, 8(1), 75-93.
• Kessels, R.P.C. (2020). [Unpublished normative data of the Emotion Recognition Task (ERT) for ages 18–88 years]. Available via: https://www.roykessels.nl/Emotion-Recognition-Task.