Facial expressions have a communicatory function and the ability to read them is a prerequisite for understanding feelings and thoughts of other individuals. Impairments in recognition of facial emotional expressions are frequently found in patients with neurological conditions (e.g. stroke, traumatic brain injury, frontotemporal dementia).
Hence, a standard neuropsychological assessment should include measurement of emotion recognition. However, there is debate regarding which tests are most suitable. Our study evaluated and compared three different emotion recognition tests.
84 healthy participants were included and assessed with three tests, in varying order:
a. Ekman 60 Faces Test (FEEST), b. Emotion Recognition Task (ERT), c. Emotion Evaluation Test (EET). The tests differ in type of stimuli from static photographs (FEEST) to more dynamic stimuli in the form of morphed photographs (ERT) to videos (EET).