Korean Facial Emotion Recognition Tasks for Schizophrenia Research

Abstract

ObjectiveDespite the fact that facial emotion recognition (FER) tasks using Western faces should be applied with caution to non-Western participants or patients, there are few psychometrically sound and validated FER tasks featuring Easterners' facial expressions for emotions. Thus, we aimed to develop and establish the psychometric properties of the Korean Facial Emotion Identification Task (K-FEIT) and the Korean Facial Emotion Discrimination Task (K-FEDT) for individuals with schizophrenia.MethodsThe K-FEIT and K-FEDT were administered to 42 Korean individuals with schizophrenia to evaluate their psychometric properties. To test the convergent and divergent validities, the Social Behavior Sequencing Task (SBST) and hinting task were administered as social-cognitive measures, and the Trail Making Test (TMT)-A and -B were administered as neurocognitive measures.ResultsAverage accuracy on the K-FEIT and K-FEDT were 63% and 74%, respectively, and internal consistencies of the K-FEIT and K-FEDT were 0.82 and 0.95, respectively. The K-FEIT and K-FEDT were significantly correlated with SBST and Hinting Task, but not with TMT-A and B.ConclusionFollowing replication studies in a larger sample, the K-FEIT and K-FEDT are expected to facilitate future studies targeting facial emotion recognition in schizophrenia in Korea. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Development of the Korean Facial Emotion Stimuli: Korea University Facial Expression Collection 2nd Edition

“…In a previous study, the effect size for correctly identifying a targeted emotion (“hit rate”) out of eight type dimensions in eight models in the Radboud Faces Database (RaFD) was η 2 = 0.47 ( Langner et al, 2010 ). In addition, in a previous study, mean differences in accuracy between Western and Eastern models’ fearful facial expressions were large ( t = 3.60, df = 45) ( Bahk et al, 2015 ). Given the large effect sizes observed in previous studies, we decided that 54 participants should provide sufficient power for 80% power assuming a 5% significance level and a two-sided test.…”

“…These issues could result in difficulties when interpreting study results. For instance, even though it has been noted that fearful Korean facial expressions have markedly low consensus ratings ( Bahk et al, 2015 ), it is unclear whether this is the result of issues (e.g., deviations from the FACS) with stimuli, or with characteristics specific to Koreans (e.g., reduced sensitivity to fearful expressions).…”

A critical overview of emotion processing assessment in non-affective and affective psychoses

“…It has been validated for Korean (Bahk et al. , 2015 ) and Chinese (Lo and Siu, 2018 ) populations, but no normative data are currently available for the European and South American populations, which limits its clinical use. In contrast, the EK-60F has been validated in Korea (Kim et al.…”

“…, 1986 ; Kerr and Neale, 1993 ; Zuroff and Colussy, 1986 ), although normative data are currently available only for USA and Korean (Bahk et al. , 2015 ) populations. Another test is the Emotion Differentiation Task (EMODIFF; Kohler et al.…”