Neurol Sci
July 2024
Despite research has massively focused on how emotions conveyed by faces are perceived, the perception of emotions' authenticity is a topic that has been surprisingly overlooked. Here, we present the Emotion Authenticity Recognition (EAR) test, a test specifically developed using dynamic stimuli depicting authentic and posed emotions to evaluate the ability of individuals to correctly identify an emotion (emotion recognition index, ER Index) and classify its authenticity (authenticity recognition index (EA Index). The EAR test has been validated on 522 healthy participants and normative values are provided.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This study aimed at developing and standardizing the Telephone Language Screener (TLS), a novel, disease-nonspecific, telephone-based screening test for language disorders.
Methods: The TLS was developed in strict pursuance to the current psycholinguistic standards. It comprises nine tasks assessing phonological, lexical-semantic and morpho-syntactic components, as well as an extra Backward Digit Span task.
Objective: The study explored the change in handwritten signature in neurodegenerative diseases by using of a rater-based approach.
Methods: Four independent observers were required to compare a pair of signatures (on average, 5 years elapsed between the two signatures) made by 103 patients (mean age 72 years) with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and by 31 healthy participants (HC; mean age 73 years), judging their change according to a 0-1 rating scale (0 = similar or 1 = different). If a signature change was detected, the rater had also to report which signature features (spatial layout, omitted/added/switched letters or names, shape of letter, pen-flow) changed on the same 0-1 scale.
Background: This study aimed at standardizing and providing preliminary evidence on the clinical usability of the Italian telephone-based Verbal Fluency Battery (t-VFB), which includes phonemic (t-PVF), semantic (t-SVF) and alternate (t-AVF) verbal fluency tasks.
Methods: Three-hundred and thirty-five Italian healthy participants (HPs; 140 males; age = 18-96 years; education = 4-23 years) and 27 individuals with neurodegenerative or cerebrovascular diseases were administered the t-VFB. Switch number and cluster size were computed latent semantic analyses.
Background: Despite the relevance of telephone-based cognitive screening tests in clinical practice and research, no specific test assessing executive functioning is available. The present study aimed at standardizing and providing evidence of clinical usability for the Italian telephone-based Frontal Assessment Battery (t-FAB).
Methods: The t-FAB (ranging 0-12), comprising two subtests, has two versions: one requiring motor responses (t-FAB-M) and the other verbal responses (t-FAB-V).