title: Inconsistent emotion recognition deficits across stimulus modalities in Huntington׳s disease.
abstract: Recognition of negative emotions is impaired in Huntington׳s Disease (HD). It is unclear whether these emotion-specific problems are driven by dissociable cognitive deficits, emotion complexity, test cue difficulty, or visuoperceptual impairments. This study set out to further characterise emotion recognition in HD by comparing patterns of deficits across stimulus modalities; notably including for the first time in HD, the more ecologically and clinically relevant modality of film clips portraying dynamic facial expressions.
  
  
  
  Fifteen early HD and 17 control participants were tested on emotion recognition from static facial photographs, non-verbal vocal expressions and one second dynamic film clips, all depicting different emotions.
  
  
  
  Statistically significant evidence of impairment of anger, disgust and fear recognition was seen in HD participants compared with healthy controls across multiple stimulus modalities. The extent of the impairment, as measured by the difference in the number of errors made between HD participants and controls, differed according to the combination of emotion and modality (p=0.013, interaction test). The largest between-group difference was seen in the recognition of anger from film clips.
  
  
  
  Consistent with previous reports, anger, disgust and fear were the most poorly recognised emotions by the HD group. This impairment did not appear to be due to task demands or expression complexity as the pattern of between-group differences did not correspond to the pattern of errors made by either group; implicating emotion-specific cognitive processing pathology. There was however evidence that the extent of emotion recognition deficits significantly differed between stimulus modalities. The implications in terms of designing future tests of emotion recognition and care giving are discussed.
authors.affiliation: University College London, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, c/o Box 104, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Electronic address: elin.rees@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Elin M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Rees
authors.affiliation: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel St, London WC1E 7HT, UK. Electronic address: ruth.farmer@lshtm.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Farmer
authors.affiliation: University College London, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, c/o Box 104, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Electronic address: james.cole@imperial.ac.uk.
authors.forename: James H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Cole
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, First floor, 8-11 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK. Electronic address: susie.henley@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Susie M D
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Henley
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology and Neurosciences, University of St Andrews, St Mary's Quad, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK; Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Oberer Eselsberg 45, D-89081 Ulm, Germany. Electronic address: rhs3@st-andrews.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Reiner
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sprengelmeyer
authors.affiliation: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel St, London WC1E 7HT, UK. Electronic address: Chris.Frost@lshtm.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Frost
authors.affiliation: University College London, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, c/o Box 104, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Electronic address: r.scahill@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Rachael I
authors.initials: RI
authors.lastname: Scahill
authors.affiliation: University College London, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, c/o Box 104, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Electronic address: n.hobbs@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Nicola Z
authors.initials: NZ
authors.lastname: Hobbs
authors.affiliation: University College London, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, c/o Box 104, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Electronic address: s.tabrizi@prion.ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Tabrizi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: Emotion; Huntington׳s disease