Cite as:
Ambert-Dahan E, Giraud A-L, Sterkers O, Samson S, 2011, "Impaired dynamic facial emotion recognition in deaf participants" Perception 40 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 138

Impaired dynamic facial emotion recognition in deaf participants

E Ambert-Dahan, A-L Giraud, O Sterkers, S Samson

Emotional facial expressions are necessary in human communication. Although it has been frequently suggested that sensory deprivation is associated to enhancement of functional compensation, recent studies failed to support this finding. According to Giraud et al (2007) progressive hearing loss entails cross-modal reorganization for the perception of speech. However, no study has been reported in the emotional domain. To address this issue, we tested twenty-three deaf participants before (n=10) and after (n=13) (chochlear implant) as well as thirteen matched healthy controls. This test consists of 40 short video (STOIC, Rainville et al, 2007) corresponding to portrayed expressions of anger, fear, happiness and sadness (plus a neutral expression). Participants were asked to rate to what extent each dynamic emotional faces expressed these four emotions on a rating scale and to judge their valence and arousal. Results suggest that deaf participants are impaired in the recognition of happiness (p<0.01), fear (p<0.01) and sadness (p<0.01). Moreover, the rating of valence is altered. These findings extend to nonlinguistic emotional stimuli the detrimental effect of neurosensorial hearing loss in recognizing visual stimuli.

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