Assessing the effectiveness of online emotion recognition training in healthy volunteers

Reed, Zoe E.; Suddell, Steph; Eastwood, Andy; Thomas, Lilian; Dwyer, Imogen; Penton-Voak, Ian S.; Jarrold, Christopher; Munafò, Marcus R.; Attwood, Angela S.

Abstract

Facial emotion recognition (ER) difficulties are associated with mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism and poorer social functioning. ER interventions may therefore have clinical potential. We investigated the efficacy of ER training (ERT). We conducted three online studies with healthy volunteers completing one ERT session. Studies 1 and 2 included active and control/sham training groups and tested the efficacy of (i) four-emotion ERT (angry, happy, sad and scared) (n = 101), and (ii) six-emotion ERT (adding disgusted and surprised) (n = 109). Study 3 tested generalizability of ERT to non-trained stimuli with groups trained and tested on the same stimuli, or different stimuli (n = 120). Training effects on total correct hits were estimated using linear mixed effects models. We did not observe clear evidence of improvement in study 1 but note the effect was in the direction of improvement (b = 0.02, 95% confidence interval (CI) = −0.02 to 0.07). Study 2 indicated greater total hits following training (b = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.03–0.12). Study 3 demonstrated similar improvement across groups (b = −0.01, 95% CI = −0.05 to 0.02). Our results indicate improved ER (as measured by our task), which generalizes to different facial stimulus sets. Future studies should further explore generalizability, longer-term effects and ERT in populations with known ER difficulties.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 29, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Sep 27, 2023
• Publication Date: Sep 30, 2023
• Deposit Date: Mar 11, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 11, 2025
• Journal: Royal Society Open Science
• Electronic ISSN: 2054-5703
• Publisher: Royal Society, The
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 9
• Article Number: 230372
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230372
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/13931361
• Additional Information: Received: 2023-03-23; Accepted: 2023-08-29; Published: 2023-09-27