Poor emotion recognition has been associated with poor quality of interpersonal relationships, loss of employment, behavioral problems, reduced social reintegration, social isolation and even suicide. Deficits in emotion recognition are common in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but these deficits have not been well studied in Veterans with both mild TBI (mTBI) and PTSD. Currently there are no interventions for emotion recognition in Veterans with mTBI and PTSD, and interventions for severe TBI have lacked training of both facial and vocal emotion recognition. In a preliminary study of an innovative combination of facial and vocal modalities, a multimodal affect recognition training (MMART) showed promise but lacked attention training that is an essential component in recognizing emotions in our daily lives. Given the need to improve relationships and productivity in Veterans with mTBI and PTSD, a study is needed to determine the effectiveness of a MMART combined with attention training.
Veterans with a diagnosis of mTBI and PTSD based on VA/Department of Defense guidelines.
Emotion recognition deficit
Attention deficit
Corrected vision within normal limits
premorbid history of schizophrenia
bipolar disorder
chronic medical or neurological diseases
Parallel
Multimodal affect recognition training
Behavioral8 session, trains participants to recognize expression of emotion from a variety of stimuli, including dynamic stimuli (e.g., video instead of still pictures) and it employs both facial and vocal examples of emotion expression.
Attention Training
Behavioralcomputerized attention drill training
Brain Health Workshop
Behavioralan education presentation on brain function and cognitive principles of learning with homework and quizzes on information covered.
National Geographic Movies
Behavioralparticipant will watch movies and answer questions after
Florida Affect Battery (FAB), assessing change
a standardized assessment of emotional affect and prosody recognition. normative scores range from 0-100 for each of the 12 subscales. Higher scores indicate better emotion recognition.
Community Reintegration of Service Members, assessing change
Satisfaction questionnaire of community participation. Scores range from .43 to 2.15. 43 items with five rating options of 1-5. Higher scores indicate better community participation.
Emotion Recognition Task, assessing change
computerized assessment of emotional affect recognition. Correct responses range from 0-48 (higher scores indicate better emotion recognition) and correct response time ranges from 0 to infinity (lower scores indicate quicker response time).
Continuous Performance Task, assessing change
computerized measures of sustained attention. 100 trials with accuracy ranging from 0-100 (higher scores indicate better attention) and response time from 0-60 (lower scores indicate quicker response time).
Attention Index of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status, assessing change
digit span and symbol digit to assess attention. Scaled scores range from 1-19, with higher scores indicating better attention.
Traumatic Brain injury quality of life
quality of life questionnaire about community participation. 59 items with scores ranging from 59-295, with higher scores indicating better community participation.
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