Emotion recognition in young male offenders and non-offenders

Abstract

The study of facial emotional expressions not only gives information about communicative and adaptive processes, but also provides valuable knowledge about some aspects of human behaviour, such as emotions and intentions. Taking into account the proved evidence that deficits in processing emotional information shows difficulties in executive functions and social behavior, the present work aims to compare the perceptual and dimensional similarities between the emotions transmitted by the faces (facial emotions) and those typically associated with two particular emotional contexts (offenders and non-offenders). To evaluate the contextual influence on emotional face categorization, the emotional recognition in 69 male young (35 offenders (17.22 ± 1.5 years) and 34 non-offenders (16.90 ± 1.56 years) from Barranquilla (Colombia) was analyzed. Experimental results displayed significant differences among the two groups, mainly focused in the recognition of anger and disgust faces. In this sense, the analysis of abovementioned data may lead to the development of more specific and cost-effective therapeutic treatments for offender population.