Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Muenster University, Medical School, Muenster, Germany.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Muenster University, Medical School, Muenster, Germany.
Psychiatry Res. 2015 Jul 30;228(1):39-45. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2015.04.005. Epub 2015 Apr 14.
A novel emotion recognition task that employs photos of a Japanese mask representing a highly ambiguous stimulus was evaluated. As non-Asians perceive and/or label emotions differently from Asians, we aimed to identify patterns of task-performance in non-Asian healthy volunteers with a view to future patient studies. The Noh mask test was presented to 42 adult German participants. Reaction times and emotion attribution patterns were recorded. To control for emotion identification abilities, a standard emotion recognition task was used among others. Questionnaires assessed personality traits. Finally, results were compared to age- and gender-matched Japanese volunteers. Compared to other tasks, German participants displayed slowest reaction times on the Noh mask test, indicating higher demands of ambiguous emotion recognition. They assigned more positive emotions to the mask than Japanese volunteers, demonstrating culture-dependent emotion identification patterns. As alexithymic and anxious traits were associated with slower reaction times, personality dimensions impacted on performance, as well. We showed an advantage of ambiguous over conventional emotion recognition tasks. Moreover, we determined emotion identification patterns in Western individuals impacted by personality dimensions, suggesting performance differences in clinical samples. Due to its properties, the Noh mask test represents a promising tool in the differential diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, e.g. schizophrenia.
一项新颖的情绪识别任务，使用代表高度模糊刺激的日本面具照片进行评估。由于非亚洲人对情绪的感知和/或标签与亚洲人不同，我们旨在确定非亚裔健康志愿者在任务表现中的模式，以期未来进行患者研究。向 42 名成年德国参与者展示了能剧面具测试。记录了反应时间和情绪归因模式。为了控制情绪识别能力，还使用了其他标准的情绪识别任务。问卷调查评估了人格特质。最后，将结果与年龄和性别匹配的日本志愿者进行了比较。与其他任务相比，德国参与者在能剧面具测试中的反应时间最慢，表明对模糊情绪识别的要求更高。他们比日本志愿者赋予面具更多的积极情绪，表现出文化依赖性的情绪识别模式。由于情绪识别缓慢与述情障碍和焦虑特质有关，因此人格维度也会影响表现。我们展示了模糊情绪识别任务优于传统情绪识别任务的优势。此外，我们确定了受人格维度影响的西方个体的情绪识别模式，表明在临床样本中存在表现差异。由于其特性，能剧面具测试代表了精神障碍（例如精神分裂症）鉴别诊断的一种有前途的工具。
