Descrizione del progetto
Comprendere il riconoscimento delle emozioni attraverso l’apprendimento statistico
Alcune emozioni sono più difficili da riconoscere rispetto ad altre, e alcune persone, come le persone affette da disturbi dello spettro autistico (ASD, autism spectrum disorders), riscontrano più difficoltà a riconoscere le emozioni in generale. Il progetto LearningEmotions, finanziato dall’UE, aiuterà a capire se i due fenomeni possano derivare dalla medesima fonte, ovvero difficoltà nei modelli di apprendimento e nelle loro associazioni (il cosiddetto apprendimento statistico). Il progetto quantificherà la variabilità degli indizi utilizzati per segnalare emozioni da un database di emozioni audiovisive per confrontare se le emozioni difficili da riconoscere hanno meno modelli coerenti rispetto alle emozioni che sono più facili da riconoscere. Il progetto confronterà inoltre soggetti autistici e non autistici nella loro capacità di riconoscere emozioni e apprendere modelli per capire se le due capacità sono correlate, utilizzando metodi comportamentali e neurali.
Obiettivo
Statistical learning refers to the ability to learn through the discovery of patterns and structures. I propose to investigate emotion recognition using a statistical learning perspective in order to understand (i) why some emotions are harder to recognise than others; and (ii) why individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD individuals) have more difficulty recognising emotions than neurotypicals (i.e. individuals without autism).
I argue that part of the difficulty in recognising certain emotions lies in how reliable or consistent the auditory and visual cues are in signalling the emotion. That is, if particular cues consistently signal or have a high probability of signalling an emotion (e.g. 'happy' is consistently signaled by squinty eyes and grin/smile), then that emotion would be easier to recognise than emotions that are signalled by inconsistent cues (e.g. sarcasm may have varied expressions depending on the individual, context, etc. and so sarcasm would be more difficult to recognise). To investigate this, I will use an audio-visual emotion database that is currently under development to quantify the variability of cues across speakers in signalling the intended emotion.
I propose that the difficulty ASD individuals have with recognising emotions lies in a general difficulty with consolidating probabilistic information. In terms of emotion recognition, this would manifest as a difficulty with making a correct inference of the intended emotion given particular cues, which vary in their probabilities in signalling the emotion. To investigate this hypothesis, I will conduct a behavioural and a neural experiment comparing ASD individuals with neurotypicals on probabilistic learning to determine whether group differences exist and whether probabilistic learning is related to emotion recognition.
Outcomes of this project may inform intervention practices for ASD individuals and provide a general framework of understanding other ASD characteristics.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinatore
RG6 6AH Reading
Regno Unito