Emotion Recognition From Dynamic Emotional Displays in Children With ADHD

Abstract

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often engage in ineffective or inappropriate social interactions and have been shown to be less accurate at interpreting emotions than typically developing controls. Twenty-four children with a clinical diagnosis of ADHD were compared with 24 age and verbal IQ matched controls using an Emotion Evaluation Test (EET) from The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TA SIT). The task assessed interpretation of naturalistic emotional displays including facial movement, tone of voice, and gestures. In each form, 28 vignettes of neutral scripts were enacted by professional actors to represent seven basic emotional categories: Fear, Anger, Sadness, Disgust, Surprise, Happiness as well as a neutral category. The children with ADHD performed more poorly than their age and intelligence matched controls and errors were observed across both positive and negative emotions. The results are discussed in light of problems in recognizing social and contextual cues of emotion.