Assessing the Ability to Recognize Facial and Vocal Expressions of Emotion: Construction and Validation of the Emotion Recognition Index

Abstract

Despite extensive research on emotional expression, there are few validated tests of individual differences in emotion recognition competence (generally considered as part of nonverbal sensitivity and emotional intelligence). This paper reports the development of a rapid test of emotion recognition ability, the Emotion Recognition Index (ERI), consisting of two subtests: one for facial and one for vocal emotion recognition. The rationale underlying the test's construction, item selection, and analysis are described and a major validation study with more than 3,500 professional candidates, providing stable norms, is reported. Additional analyses concern differences for gender, age, and education, as well as correlations with cognitive intelligence and personality factors. Moreover, a separate validation study with a student sample reports the correlations of the ERI with some of the major published tests in this area, demonstrating satisfactory construct validity. Correlations between ERI scores and the position of candidates in the organizational hierarchy suggest that recognition competence might be might contribute to predicting career advancement.

Can you hear what I feel? A validated prosodic set of angry, happy, and neutral Italian pseudowords

“…The literature on emotion processing has traditionally favored the study of facial emotion recognition (Ekman & Friesen, 1976;Ekman, Friesen, & Hager, 2002). However, individuals use multiple cues from different communicative channels (e.g., facial expression, body posture, and speech) to succeed in these processes (Scherer & Scherer, 2011). Moreover, difficulties in integrating multichannel emotional information can lead to impairments in empathic abilities and social cognition (Minzenberg, Poole, & Vinogradov, 2006;Preißler, Dziobek, Ritter, Heekeren, & Roepke, 2010).…”

Sex Role Identity, Communication Skills, and Group Popularity

“…People with high nonverbal accuracy seem to be more liked by their peers (Nowicki & Marshall, 1992) and have higher rate of social participation (Custrini & Feldman, 1989;Verbeek & de Wal, 2001). Studies conducted on adults show also that the nonverbal decoding accuracy is related to relational well-being (Carton, Kessler, & Pape, 1999) and social status (Scherer & Scherer, 2011). Such findings are not surprising because people expect others to be sensitive to their feelings.…”

Facial emotion detection technology: concept, marketing applications, business drivers and challenges

“…Consoli [16] has studied the influence of emotions on purchase decision by using an algorithm of sentiment analysis for extracting and analysing opinion of online customers. Klaus R. Scherer and Ursula Scherer [17] have developed an emotion recognition index which consists of 2 tests, one which measures facial emotion and the other measuring voice recognition. Fuji Ren and Changqin Quan [18] have proposed a facial emotion and recognition method based on linguistics for measuring customer satisfaction.…”