Recognition of Emotions by Young People with Disabilities

Introduction. This paper presents the results of a comparative study on the retrieval and recognition of basic emotions from photographs by young men and women with disabilities, including groups with somatic diseases, nervous system diseases, mental and behavioral disorders, and ear diseases.

Objective. Identify the peculiarities of emotion recognition by people with disabilities.

Materials and Methods. The main sample consisted of 99 men and females, with disabilities, aged 18 to 26 years. The average age of the respondents was 20.6 years. Within the framework of the empirical study, we used the computer programme "Programme for assessing the level of emotion recognition (emotional intelligence testing)" and APC "Activationometer AC-6". Within the framework of statistical data processing, the Mann-Whitney U-criterion, the Wilcoxon T-criterion and the Kraskell-Woliss H-criterion were used to investigate the reliability of differences.

Results. The study revealed that there are differences in the specifics of passing the test to find and recognizing basic emotions in photographs depending on the functional asymmetry of the brain hemispheres. All the studied groups with disabilities recognized the emotion "joy" on the photos faster and more correctly, while the emotion "anger" was recognized worse and took more time. Representatives of the studied groups having left-hemispheric shift of the indicators of functional asymmetry of hemispheres demonstrated significantly higher indicators of the speed of search for target basic emotions and correctness of their recognition. The novelty of the study lies in the use of a new approach to the form of tests to search and recognize basic emotions of the target from photographs and to assess the activation of brain hemispheres in people with disabilities.

Discussion. Respondents with a left-hemispheric bias identified target emotions faster and more accurately, which may be related to the high activation and energy expenditure of the left hemisphere and indicate a significant contribution of the left hemisphere in the recognition and retrieval of emotions. The emotion "joy" was recognized faster and more accurately than "anger" in all subjects, which may be related to the frequency of occurrence of the emotion during communication, facial mimic activity and specificity of emotion manifestation in relation to the persons under study.

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