Computerized Assessment of Emotion Recognition Skills

描述（由申请人提供）：本拨款提案的目的是开发一个基于网络的音频计算机辅助自我访谈（audio- casi）软件包，用于评估幼儿的情绪识别技能。儿童情感知识与社会能力之间的关系已得到证实。需要早期预防干预来成功地改变适应不良的情绪知识技能。事实上，一些基于证据的暴力预防和社会技能干预项目包括对情感识别技能的培训。尽管情绪识别技能的研究取得了这些进展，但目前还没有针对幼儿的具有已知心理特征的标准化、规范化的技能测量方法。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或建立与社会认知功能相关的干预目标。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中基本情绪的能力，从而填补这些空白。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为不同性别和种族的儿童制作快乐、悲伤、愤怒、害怕、惊讶、厌恶和暧昧的面部表情的数码照片；设计可靠、有效地评估情绪识别技能的评估题；为该措施创建评分算法；开发有吸引力的、用户友好的、适合发展和文化的基于网络的软件，该软件包含数字照片、评估项目和评分算法。产品测试的目的包括试行基于网络的措施，以确定可行性、适当性、清晰度、兴趣和有效性；并进行定量分析以开始检查该测量的初始心理测量特性。情感知识在儿童的发展中起着至关重要的作用，应该继续成为学前、小学和中学教育的标准部分。创建和规范一种情绪识别测量方法，可以使用自我管理和基于网络的计算机程序轻松快速地进行管理和评分，这将有助于对儿童情绪知识进行更普遍和标准化的筛选。该工具将允许教师、临床医生和其他专业人员衡量课程、预防干预和治疗方案的效果，并为评估儿童的情感知识和理解提供规范的衡量标准。

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.