Jackki Hoon Eng Yim

Citation

Thesis Title
Affect Recognition Training After Traumatic Brain Injury

Read article at Massey Research Online:

Dr Yim’s research, as part of a multi-centre randomised clinical trial, investigated the efficacy of two new treatments (Faces and Stories) designed to improve aspects of emotion recognition in adults with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury compared to an active sham treatment control group. It also examined the role of cognitive factors in facial affect recognition. TheFaces intervention led to significantly improved performance on the primary outcome measure of facial affect recognition, and these differences were maintained at three and six month follow-up. Greater facial affect recognition failures were particularly related to working memory, processing speed, and nonverbal memory. No relationship was found with executive functioning. These findings highlight that the linkage between facial affect recognition and cognitive functioning in TBI is complex. The research supports the Faces treatment as a possible new rehabilitation treatment, although the generalisation of the treatment to daily social life requires further research.

Supervisors
Dr Duncan Babbage
Professor Barry Willer
Professor Janet Leathem