Computerized Assessment of Emotion Recognition Skills

描述(申请人提供)：这项资助计划的目的是开发一个基于网络的有声计算机辅助自访(AUDIO-CASI)软件包，用于评估幼儿的情绪识别技能。儿童的情感知识和社交能力之间的关系已经建立得很好了。要成功地改变不良情绪知识技能，需要早期的预防性干预。事实上，几个基于证据的暴力预防和社交技能干预计划包括情感识别技能培训。尽管情绪识别技能的研究取得了这些进展，但目前还没有标准化、标准化的测量方法来衡量这些技能，这些技能具有已知的幼儿心理测量特性。因此，心理健康专业人员和研究人员无法获得最先进的措施来评估其干预措施的有效性，也无法制定与社会认知功能有关的干预目标。目前的提案旨在通过创建专业质量的软件和照片来评估儿童准确识别面部表情基本情绪的能力，从而开始填补这些空白。第一阶段包括关于产品开发和产品可行性测试的两套基本目标。该产品的开发目标包括创建对不同性别和种族的幼儿的高兴、悲伤、愤怒、恐惧、惊讶、厌恶和模棱两可的面部表情的数字照片；设计评估问题以可靠和有效地评估情感识别技能；创建衡量标准的评分算法；以及开发具有吸引力、用户友好、适合开发和文化的基于网络的软件，其中包括数字照片、评估项目和评分算法。产品测试的目标包括试行基于网络的测量，以确定可行性、适当性、清晰度、趣味性和有效性；并进行量化分析，开始检查测量的初始心理测量学特性。与公共健康相关的情感知识在儿童的发展中起着关键作用，应该继续成为学前教育、小学教育和中学教育的标准部分。创建和规范情绪识别测量，可以使用自我管理的基于网络的计算机程序轻松快速地进行管理和评分，将有助于对儿童的情绪知识进行更普遍和标准化的筛查。拟议的工具将允许教师、临床医生和其他专业人员衡量课程、预防干预和治疗计划的效果，并提供用于评估儿童情感知识和理解的规范衡量标准。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this grant proposal is to develop a web-based, audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (audio-CASI) software package for assessing emotion recognition skills in young children. A consistent relationship between emotional knowledge and social competence in children has been well-established. Early preventive interventions are needed to successfully alter maladaptive emotion knowledge skills. In fact, several evidence-based violence prevention and social skills intervention programs include training on emotional recognition skills. Despite these advances in the study of emotion recognition skills, there currently exists no standardized, normed measure of these skills with known psychometric properties for young children. Thus, mental health professionals and researchers do not have access to state-of-the-art measures to assess the effectiveness of their interventions or to establish intervention goals related to social cognitive functioning. The current proposal is designed to begin to fill these gaps by creating professional quality software and photographs to assess children's ability to accurately identify basic emotions in facial expressions. Phase I includes two basic sets of aims regarding product development and product feasibility testing. The product development aims include creating digital photographs of facial emotion expressions of happy, sad, angry, scared, surprise, disgust, and ambiguous with young children who vary by sex and race; designing assessment questions to reliably and validly assess emotion recognition skills; creating scoring algorithms for the measure; and developing attractive, user-friendly, developmentally and culturally appropriate web-based software that incorporates digital photographs, assessment items, and scoring algorithms. The product testing aims include piloting the web-based measure to determine feasibility, appropriateness, clarity, interest, and effectiveness; and to conduct quantitative analyses to begin to examine the initial psychometric properties of the measure. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE Emotional knowledge plays a critical role in a child's development and should continue to be a standard part of pre-school, elementary, and middle school education. The creation and norming of an emotion recognition measure that can easily and quickly be administered and scored using a self-administered and web-based computer program will contribute to allowing for more universal and standardized screening of children's emotional knowledge. The proposed tool will allow teachers, clinicians, and other professionals to measure the effects of curricula, preventive interventions, and treatment programs as well as provide a normed measure for use in assessing a child's emotional knowledge and understanding.