Psychological and neural bases of emotion recognition: Current theories and their clinical implications

Abstract

  Correspondence between emotions and expressive behaviors has often been assumed either implicitly or explicitly in neuropsychological research. According to this theoretical position, emotion recognition is a type of perceptual pattern recognition decoding othersʼ internal states from their expressive behaviors.However, lesion studies have highlighted the roles of “emotional brain” such as the amygdala and insula in emotion recognition, leading to the “simulation theory” that the vicarious sharing of othersʼ feelings contributes to the understanding of their emotional experience. In addition, some researchers argue strongly against the emotion-expression correspondence and emphasize the importance of inferences based on contextual information for accurate emotion recognition. In recent years, there has also been increasing interest in neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying the integration of different cues such as expressive behaviors and contexts for recognizing othersʼ emotions. In brief, emotion recognition is supported by a variety of processes at least including pattern recognition, experience sharing, contextual inference, and cue integration. This implies both fragility and robustness of emotion recognition. On one hand, dysfunction in any of the above processes could result in impairment of emotion recognition. On the other hand, dysfunction in one process could be compensated for by other intact processes, possibly preventing noticeable deficits in emotion recognition. These contradictory features of emotion recognition may require attention in a clinical assessment.