Objective: This study was aimed at testing two hypotheses suggested by previous research with a new Stroop task created for the purpose: 1) the impairment of emotion recognition in Huntington disease (HD) is moderated by the emotions’ valence, and 2) inhibitory control is impaired in HD. Method: 40 manifest and 20 pre-manifest HD patients and their age- and gender-matched controls completed both the traditional “Stroop Color and Word Test” (SCWT) and the newly created “Stroop Emotion Recognition under Word Interference Task” (SERWIT), which consist in 120 photographs of sad, calm, or happy faces with either congruent or incongruent word interference. Results: On the SERWIT, impaired emotion recognition in manifest HD was moderated by emotion type, with deficits being larger in recognizing sadness and calmness than in recognizing happiness, but it was not moderated by stimulus congruency. On the SCWT, six different interference scores yielded as many different patterns of group effects. Conclusions: Overall our results corroborate the hypothesis that impaired emotion recognition in HD is moderated by the emotions’ valence, but don’t provide evidence for the hypothesis that inhibitory control is impaired in HD. Further research is needed to learn more about the psychological mechanisms underlying the moderating effect of emotional valence on impaired emotion recognition in HD, and to corroborate the hypothesis that the inhibitory processes involved in Stroop tasks are not impaired in HD. Looking beyond this study, the SERWIT promises to make important contributions to disentangling the cognitive and the psychomotor aspects of neurological disorders.

Emotion recognition and inhibitory control in manifest and pre-manifest Huntington's disease: evidence from a new Stroop task / Hünefeldt, T.; Maffi, S.; Migliore, S.; Squitieri, F.; Olivetti, Belardinelli. - In: NEURAL REGENERATION RESEARCH. - ISSN 1673-5374. - 15:8(2020), pp. 1518-1525. [10.4103/1673-5374.274342]

Emotion recognition and inhibitory control in manifest and pre-manifest Huntington's disease: evidence from a new Stroop task

Hünefeldt T.
;
Olivetti Belardinelli
2020

Abstract

Objective: This study was aimed at testing two hypotheses suggested by previous research with a new Stroop task created for the purpose: 1) the impairment of emotion recognition in Huntington disease (HD) is moderated by the emotions’ valence, and 2) inhibitory control is impaired in HD. Method: 40 manifest and 20 pre-manifest HD patients and their age- and gender-matched controls completed both the traditional “Stroop Color and Word Test” (SCWT) and the newly created “Stroop Emotion Recognition under Word Interference Task” (SERWIT), which consist in 120 photographs of sad, calm, or happy faces with either congruent or incongruent word interference. Results: On the SERWIT, impaired emotion recognition in manifest HD was moderated by emotion type, with deficits being larger in recognizing sadness and calmness than in recognizing happiness, but it was not moderated by stimulus congruency. On the SCWT, six different interference scores yielded as many different patterns of group effects. Conclusions: Overall our results corroborate the hypothesis that impaired emotion recognition in HD is moderated by the emotions’ valence, but don’t provide evidence for the hypothesis that inhibitory control is impaired in HD. Further research is needed to learn more about the psychological mechanisms underlying the moderating effect of emotional valence on impaired emotion recognition in HD, and to corroborate the hypothesis that the inhibitory processes involved in Stroop tasks are not impaired in HD. Looking beyond this study, the SERWIT promises to make important contributions to disentangling the cognitive and the psychomotor aspects of neurological disorders.
2020
Huntington’s disease; emotion recognition; emotional valence; inhibitory control; Stroop interference; congruent vs incongruent word interference
01 Pubblicazione su rivista::01a Articolo in rivista
Emotion recognition and inhibitory control in manifest and pre-manifest Huntington's disease: evidence from a new Stroop task / Hünefeldt, T.; Maffi, S.; Migliore, S.; Squitieri, F.; Olivetti, Belardinelli. - In: NEURAL REGENERATION RESEARCH. - ISSN 1673-5374. - 15:8(2020), pp. 1518-1525. [10.4103/1673-5374.274342]
File allegati a questo prodotto
File Dimensione Formato  
Hünefeldt_Emotion-recognition_2020.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Versione editoriale (versione pubblicata con il layout dell'editore)
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 1.62 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.62 MB Adobe PDF

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1355187
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? 0
  • Scopus 5
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 5
social impact