Emotion Recognition Task (ERT)
The ERT, developed by Barbara Montagne, Roy Kessels, David Perrett and Edward de Haan, is a computerized task to assess the perception of facial expressions. The task presents morphed facial expressions that gradually increase in intensity. The participant or patient has to indicate after each morph which emotion is shown by multiple choice. Administration takes about 10 minutes. Regression-based norms are available from a sample of 418 healthy participants from Australia, the Netherlands, Ireland and Germany aged 8-88 (see table below for characteristics).
Data of individual participants are stored at the level of each trial for research purposes, but an aggregated PDF report is also generated per individual, showing the individual’s performance as percentile for each emotion as well as the total score.
The ERT has been validated in several patient groups, including stroke, autism spectrum disorders, neurosurgery patients, TBI, PTSD, Huntington’s disease, Noonan and Turner syndrome, FTD, Korsakoff's syndrome, MCI and AD. Instructions and interface are available in several languages, including English, Dutch, German, and Portugese.
The ERT is part of the online test environment by Metrisquare and can be run on any computer. For more information on the Metrisquare test platform which you need to run this (free) test, visit this link (international) or this link (Netherlands). The platform meets all requirements for the EU GDPR and comes with a standard Standard GDPR processing agreement. Research and clinical licenses are available.
For the scientific background of this test, see the following paper:
Kessels, R.P.C., Montagne, B., Hendriks, A.W., Perrett, D.I, & De Haan, E.H.F. (2014). Assessment of perception of morphed facial expressions using the Emotion Recognition Task (ERT): Normative data from healthy participants aged 8-75. Journal of Neuropsychology, 8, 75-93. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.104.2.589-598
For the updated norms for adults aged 18-88, see download below for more details. Note that the new norms have already been incorporated in the Metrisquare DiagnoseIs test platform.