Evaluation of film stimuli for the assessment of social-emotional processing

Abstract

Background: Social-emotional difficulties have been proposed to play a key role in the progression of psychiatric disorders, including anorexia nervosa. The aim of the current study was to build on existing work and develop more ecologically valid measures of interpretation biases and evoked emotional responses. Methodology: 124 healthy female participants aged 18 – 25 took part in the study. We evaluated two sets of 18 brief film clips to be used in two tasks assessing interpretation of ambiguous scenarios and reactions to emotionally provoking scenes. Written interpretations were coded, the valence of the interpretations was analysed, and an ambiguity check was conducted. Evoked facial affect and mood ratings in response to each film clip during the second, evoked emotions task were analysed using exploratory factor analyses. Results: Most of the film clips were interpreted in the expected neutral, positive, and negative manner while still retaining some ambiguity. However, participants were more attuned to the negative cues in the ambiguous film clips and three film clips were identified as unambiguous. The exploratory factor analyses showed that the positive and negative film clips used in the evoked emotions task formed their own factors as expected. However, there was substantial cross-loading of the neutral film clips when participants’ facial expression data was analysed.Discussion: A subset of the film clips evaluated here could be used to assess interpretation biases and evoked emotional responses among people with anorexia nervosa. Ambiguous negatively valenced film clips should have more subtle negative cues to ensure there is enough room for interpretation. Additionally, care should be taken to ensure optimal recording conditions if evoked facial expressions are to be assessed.