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Much research has been devoted to the development of emotion recognition tests that can be used to investigate how individuals identify and discriminate emotional expressions of other individuals. One of the most prominent emotion recognition tests is the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RME-T). The original RME-T has been widely used to investigate how individuals recognize complex emotional expressions from the eye region of adult faces. However, the RME-T can only be used to investigate inter-individual differences in complex emotion recognition during the processing of adult faces. To extend its usefulness, we developed a modified version of the RME-T, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes of Children Test (RME-C-T). The RME-C-T can be used to investigate how individuals recognize complex emotional expressions from the eye region of child faces. However, the validity of the RME-C-T has not been evaluated yet. We, thus, administered the RME-C-T together with the RME-T to a sample of healthy adult participants (n = 119). The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) were also administered. Participants’ RME-C-T performance correlated with participants’ RME-T performance, implying that the RME-C-T measures similar emotion recognition abilities as the RME-T. Participants’ RME-C-T performance also correlated with participants’ IRI and TAS scores, indicating that these emotion recognition abilities are affected by empathetic and alexithymic traits. Moreover, participants’ RME-C-T performance differed between participants with high and low TAS scores, suggesting that the RME-C-T is sensitive enough to detect impairments in these emotion recognition abilities. The RME-C-T, thus, turned out to be a valid measure of inter-individual differences in complex emotion recognition during the processing of child faces.
Over the last years, there has been a resurge in the interest to study the relationship between interoception and emotion. By now, it is well established that interoception contributes to the experience of emotions. However, it may also be possible that interoception contributes to the regulation of emotions. To test this possibility, we studied the relationship between interoception and emotion regulation in a sample of healthy individuals (n = 84). We used a similar heartbeat detection task and a similar self-report questionnaire for the assessment of interoceptive accuracy and emotion regulation as in previous studies. In contrast to previous studies, we differentiated between male and female individuals in our analyses and controlled our analyses for individual characteristics that may affect the relationship between interoceptive accuracy and emotion regulation. We found sex-differences in interoceptive accuracy and emotion regulation that amounted to a sex-specific relationship between interoceptive accuracy and emotion regulation: Whereas interoceptive accuracy was related to reappraisal but not to suppression in male individuals, interoceptive accuracy was unrelated to reappraisal and suppression in female individuals. These findings indicate that the relationship between interoception and emotion regulation is far more complex than has been suggested by previous findings. However, these findings nonetheless support the view that interoception is essential for both, the regulation and experience of emotions.