www.nuclmed.gr Hellenic Journal of Nuclear Medicine May-August 2015 (Suppl); 18 250 Emotion decoding from dynamic visual cues in older adult stroke patients: a preliminary study Aikaterini Sismanidi 1 , Georgia Konstantinidou 1 , Anastasia Miskedaki 1 , Kuriaki Ioannidou 1 , Paraskevi Karolidou 1 , Antonia Karolidou 1 & Despina Moraitou 1 , PhD. 1. School of Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Key Words: Basic emotions - Emotional valence – Positivity effect - Socioemotional Selectivity Theory - Stroke Correspondence: Aikaterini Sismanidi, School of Psychology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, E-mail: kathsis1978@yahoo.gr Abstract Aim: Social perception is very important for social interaction. Difficulties in emotional recognition might lead to communication failures. Damages affecting neural networks involved in emotion recognition may cause deficits in social cognition and social life. The aim of the present study was to examine the ability of emotion recognition in older adult stroke patients. Method: Basic emotion recognition performance of fifteen older adult stroke patients and fifteen healthy controls were compared. The one third of the participants in both groups was men and the two groups did not differ si age and educational level. In the patient group the 53.3% had a light stroke and in average 6.2 years were passed since the stroke. The procedure took place at participants' homes within the social program "Help at Home". The Emotion Evaluation Test – Part 1 from the “The Awareness of Social Inference Test” developed by McDonald and colleagues (2003), which evaluates the recognition of basic emotions from dynamic cues, was the main assessment tool. Results: The results showed statistically significant lower-level recognition of happiness and a strong tendency of a higher-level recognition of negative emotions in the patient group, compared to healthy older adult group. Conclusion: The results are consistent with leading socioemotional theories of lifespan development, according to which, the “positivity effect” that characterizes older adult’s socioemotional behaviour, is reversed to a “negativity bias”, when cognitive control processes are not at an adequate level that could support older adult’ s motivational preference to cognitively process positively-valenced information. Introduction he two basic skills required in order to maintain normal social interaction are the expression of our own emotions and the recognition of the emotions of the other. As people grow older, they experience memory loss and cognitive slow-down that, to a greater or lesser extent, influence the quality of relations in their daily routines [1, 2]. The recognition of emotions requires a series of cognitive processes: discrimination of perceptual details, recognition of characteristic (e.g., visual) patterns, and comparison with prototypes stored in the long-term memory system, to name a few. All these processes are regulated by higher-order cognitive functions, namely the executive functions. Executive functions represent the cognitive – behavioural “expressions” of the activation of the frontal lobe, which monitors and interacts with other brain structures involved in emotion recognition [1, 2]. Emotionally competent individuals are characterized by optimal functioning of emotion production and emotion perception. Emotion production competence refers to the appropriateness of the total pattern of bodily and behavioral changes as an adaptive response to a relevant event, allowing the organism to successfully cope with its consequences, Emotion perception competence refers to the ability to accurately perceive and interpret the emotional state of the other in social intercourse, based upon facial, vocal, and bodily expression [3]. Emotion recognition is an important skill related to social cognition. The emotional interpretation of stimuli such as facial expression, eye contact, body posture and movement, tone of voice, and broader contextual cues allows people to comprehend and predict other’s behaviour, provide support, avoid conflict, and regulate their emotions [4]. Emotion recognition could be related to changes in personality dimensions during aging, or it could be a separate ability. Previous studies have demonstrated reliable correlations between the ability to recognize emotions and personality dimensions. In particular, individuals who score highly on measures of the ‘openness to experience’ trait are more successful in recognizing emotional expressions [1]. Difficulties in emotion recognition are therefore considered a crucial factor in inadequate communication, and are associated with interpersonal problems that might lead to development and maintenance of psychopathology. Numerous studies have found that older adults are less adept at identifying emotions being expressed mainly via visual cues compared to younger adults [5-7]. Specific types of social functioning impairment, including reduced social competence and interest, poor interpersonal functioning and communication, which are associated with difficulties in emotion recognition, lead to reduced quality of life and inappropriate social behaviour [8]. Specifically, the message gleaned from reviews of existing research on age differences in recognizing basic emotions (i.e., happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, T