Brief Description

The Prosody Perception Test is recorded on cassette and consists of 30 everyday sentences without emotional content (e.g., “Today is Wednesday”), each delivered with one of six emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear, neutrality, and irony. The participant is asked to recognize the emotion based on the tone of voice.

Purpose

The test aims to assess the ability to recognize emotions based on tonal variations in speech. It is particularly sensitive to right hemisphere brain dysfunction.

Scoring Method

There are two scoring methods:
(1) Based on the number of correctly identified sentences: the participant selects the emotion corresponding to the tone of voice, with a maximum total score of 30 points.
(2) Based on the frequency of each emotional choice: the percentage of correct responses for each emotion is calculated. For example, if the participant correctly identifies “fear” 2 out of 3 times, their performance for that emotion is 66.7%.

Validity

Scientific articles confirm the test’s validity in distinguishing between healthy individuals and clinical populations.

Reliability

The internal reliability of the test items is very high, with a Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR-20) coefficient of 0.80.

Data Analysis and Usage

The results are used both for research purposes and clinical diagnosis, particularly in evaluating emotional perception in individuals with neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

References

Bozikas, V. P., Kosmidis, M. H., Anezoulaki, D., Giannakou, M., Andreou, C., & Karavatos, A. (2006). Impaired perception of affective prosody in schizophrenia. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 18, 81–85.
Bozikas, V. P., Kosmidis, M. H., Anezoulaki, D., Giannakou, M., & Karavatos, A. (2004). Relationship of affect recognition with psychopathology and cognitive performance in schizophrenia. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 10, 549–558.
Bozikas, V. P., Tonia, T., Andreou, C., Fokas, K., Karavatos, A., & Kosmidis, M. H. (in press). Impaired perception of affective prosody in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.
Chiou, K., Vagia, A., Chatzivou, E., Karaiskakos, D., & Kosmidou, M.-E. (2004). Emotion perception as a cognitive function: Psychometric and clinical application of a battery of neuropsychological tests in healthy individuals and patients with brain damage. Psychology, 11(3), 388–401.