The Cambridge mindreading (CAM) face-voice battery: Testing complex emotion recognition in adults with and without Asperger syndrome

Adults with Asperger Syndrome (AS) can recognise simple emotions and pass basic theory of mind tasks, but have difficulties recognising more complex emotions and mental states. This study describes a new battery of tasks, testing recognition of 20 complex emotions and mental states from faces and voices. The battery was given to males and females with AS and matched controls. Results showed the AS group performed worse than controls overall, on emotion recognition from faces and voices and on 12/20 specific emotions. Females recognised faces better than males regardless of diagnosis, and males with AS had more difficulties recognising emotions from faces than from voices. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to social functioning in AS. KEY WORDS: Emotion recognition; complex emotions; face perception; voice perception; theory of mind; Asperger Syndrome; autism spectrum; psychometrics. The ability to understand people’s emotional and other mental states, also known as ‘‘theory of mind’’ or ‘‘mindreading’ ’ (Wellman, 1992) underlies funda-mental social skills. This ability is also sometime