Emotion recognition after traumatic brain injury

: what can the Bristol Emotion Recognition Task tell us?

Abstract

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) occurs when a head injury results in altered brain function. There is substantial evidence that moderate to severe TBI is associated with decreased emotion recognition, and performance on emotion recognition tasks could be predictive of social functioning after TBI. Despite this, emotion recognition is not routinely assessed in clinical settings because tasks used to measure emotion recognition lack information about psychometrics and are rarely developed for use in a TBI population.

This thesis investigated the psychometric properties of the Bristol Emotion Recognition Task (ERT) by considering measurement reliability and validity of inferences about emotion recognition. Findings suggested low test-retest reliability in a longitudinal cohort, but adequate internal consistency in both neurologically healthy and TBI populations. A construct validation study assessing correlations between the Bristol ERT and other tasks indicated that the Bristol ERT can be used as a measure of emotion recognition. A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess emotion recognition after moderate to severe TBI. Results suggested that participants with TBI performed worse than controls on the Bristol ERT. This difference was not explained by anxiety or other potentially confounding factors. The same study design was used to investigate emotion recognition after mild TBI and found no evidence for a difference in performance between people with mild TBI and controls. Finally, associations between emotion recognition, mild TBI, and anxiety were investigated in a longitudinal cohort. There was no evidence that mild TBI or Generalised Anxiety Disorder were associated with emotion recognition, but weak evidence that participants with mild TBI were more likely to label faces as angry.

The findings highlight the importance of considering severity of injury when assessing emotion recognition after TBI. They also suggest the Bristol ERT has potential as a measure of emotion recognition in clinical settings, but further development is needed.

Date of Award	27 Sept 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Ian S Penton-Voak (Supervisor) & Robyn E Wootton (Supervisor)