Novel eye tracking tasks assess emotional processing in individuals with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia Lucy L Russell 1 , Katrina M Moore 1 , Sebastian Crutch 1 , Jason D Warren 1 , Jonathan D Rohrer 1 1 Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, United Kingdom Acknowledgements: LLR, KMM, SC, JDW, and JDR acknowledge the support of the NIHR Queen Square Dementia Biomedical Research Unit and the Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre. The Dementia Research Centre at UCL is an Alzheimer’s Research UK coordinating centre and received equipment funded by Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Brain Research Trust. JDR is an MRC Clinician Scientist and has received funding from the NIHR Rare Diseases Translational Research Collaboration. INTRODUCTION Current tasks measuring social cognition have a number of problems when assessing individuals with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). They typically have complex test instructions and require a significant amount of conversation to complete the tasks. Figure 3: The graph on the left displays performance on the complex emotion processing task whilst the graph on the right shows performance on the simple task. The blue significance bars relate to within control group differences, the orange relate to within bvFTD group differences, and the black relate to differences between the groups. Figure 1: Displays an example of the stimuli seen in the complex emotion processing task. COMPLEX EP TASK SIMPLE EP TASK 10 seconds 10 seconds 5 seconds 2 seconds 2 seconds 5 seconds Figure 2: Displays an example of the stimuli seen in the simple emotion processing task. METHODS 18 bvFTD and 21 Controls completed two instructionless novel emotion processing (EP) eye tracking tasks, specifically designed to overcome these issues. The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) was modified to assess complex EP. Four RMET images were places in the corners of a computer screen for 10 seconds, and these were replaced by an emotional word for two seconds, the the images reappeared alongside the word for five seconds. Items from the NimStim Face Stimulus Set were also used to create a similar task for simple EP. An Eyelink 1000 Plus eye tracker was used and participants basic oculomotor functions were assess. A dwell time difference score was calculated for each image using the time before and after the emotional label appeared. RESULTS Using a mixed effects model, the bvFTD group performed significantly worse than controls on the target image (Complex: Controls = 15%, bvFTD = 2%; Simple: Controls = 35%, bvFTD = 5%; p < 0.001 on both tasks). The target image was looked at significantly more than the distractor images, for each group, on the two tasks and this was not due to oculomotor problems. When looking at the valence of the simple emotions, those with bvFTD performed significantly worse than controls on both positive and negative emotions (p < 0.001). Across the individual simple emotions in the control group, fear was processed significantly worse than all other emotions; this pattern was not seen in the bvFTD group. However, the bvFTD group did perform significantly worse than controls across all emotions. CONCLUSIONS These novel tasks demonstrate that eye tracking is a viable tool to assess EP in bvFTD, allowing for a quantitative analysis whilst minimizing the test instructions. This suggests that other domains may also be tested using eye tracking, allowing the development of a range of tasks to quantitatively assess cognitive abilities in FTD. Figure 4: Performance on the positive vs negative emotions from the simple task. A: control performance; B: bvFTD performance as expressed as a percentage of the controls; C: Group differences. A. B. C. Figure 4: Displays performance on each individual emotion on the simple task. A: control performance; B: bvFTD performance as expressed as a percentage of the controls; C: Group differences. A. B. C.
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Novel eye tracking tasks assess emotional processing in individuals with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia
Lucy L Russell1, Katrina M Moore1, Sebastian Crutch1, Jason D Warren1, Jonathan D Rohrer1
1Dementia Research Centre, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, United Kingdom
Acknowledgements: LLR, KMM, SC, JDW, and JDR acknowledge the support of the NIHR Queen Square Dementia Biomedical Research Unit and theLeonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre. The Dementia Research Centre at UCL is an Alzheimer’s Research UK coordinating centre andreceived equipment funded by Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Brain Research Trust. JDR is an MRC Clinician Scientist and has received funding fromthe NIHR Rare Diseases Translational Research Collaboration.
INTRODUCTION
Current tasks measuring social cognition have a number of problems when assessing
individuals with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). They typically
have complex test instructions and require a significant amount of conversation to
complete the tasks.
Figure 3: The graph on the left displays performance on the complex emotion processing task whilst the graph on the right shows performance on the simple task. The blue significance bars relate to within control group differences, the orange relate to within bvFTD group differences, and the black relate to differences
between the groups.
Figure 1: Displays an example of the stimuli seen in the complex emotion processing task.
COMPLEX EP TASK
SIMPLE EP TASK
10 seconds
10 seconds
5 seconds
2 seconds
2 seconds
5 seconds
Figure 2: Displays an example of the stimuli seen in the simple emotion processing task.
METHODS
18 bvFTD and 21 Controls completed two instructionless novel emotion processing (EP)
eye tracking tasks, specifically designed to overcome these issues. The Reading the
Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) was modified to assess complex EP. Four RMET images
were places in the corners of a computer screen for 10 seconds, and these were
replaced by an emotional word for two seconds, the the images reappeared alongside
the word for five seconds. Items from the NimStim Face Stimulus Set were also used to
create a similar task for simple EP. An Eyelink 1000 Plus eye tracker was used and
participants basic oculomotor functions were assess. A dwell time difference score was
calculated for each image using the time before and after the emotional label
appeared.
RESULTS
Using a mixed effects model, the bvFTD group performed significantly worse than
controls on the target image (Complex: Controls = 15%, bvFTD = 2%; Simple: Controls
= 35%, bvFTD = 5%; p < 0.001 on both tasks). The target image was looked at
significantly more than the distractor images, for each group, on the two tasks and this
was not due to oculomotor problems. When looking at the valence of the simple
emotions, those with bvFTD performed significantly worse than controls on both
positive and negative emotions (p < 0.001). Across the individual simple emotions in
the control group, fear was processed significantly worse than all other emotions; this
pattern was not seen in the bvFTD group. However, the bvFTD group did perform
significantly worse than controls across all emotions.
CONCLUSIONS
These novel tasks demonstrate that eye tracking is a viable tool to assess EP in bvFTD,
allowing for a quantitative analysis whilst minimizing the test instructions. This suggests
that other domains may also be tested using eye tracking, allowing the development of
a range of tasks to quantitatively assess cognitive abilities in FTD.
Figure 4: Performance on the positive vs negative emotions from the simple task. A: control performance; B: bvFTD performance as expressed as a percentage of the controls; C: Group differences.
A. B. C.
Figure 4: Displays performance on each individual emotion on the simple task. A: control performance; B: bvFTD performance as expressed as a percentage of the controls; C: Group differences.
A. B. C.
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