Discussion 107

The present study sought to establish whether emotion recognition abilities could be improved in a sample of young offenders. A protocol based intervention task that has been shown to improve emotion recognition in individuals with acquired brain injury (Radice- Neumann et al., 2009) was used with our group of YOs. The aim was to examine whether young offenders with emotion recognition deficits, can improve their ability to recognise different emotions, whilst controlling for repeated testing effects.

The current findings firstly established that this sample of young offenders showed statistically similar emotion recognition abilities to those of the young offenders described in Chapter 2. Likewise, the YO I+ and YO I- groups displayed statistically analogous

recognition abilities during the pretest. This suggests that these samples have comparable emotion recognition deficits and are likely to share similar neurobiological profiles. Previous research that has examined emotion recognition in antisocial samples has demonstrated impaired recognition of fear, sadness and anger (e.g. Best et al., 2002; Blair & Cipolotti, 2000; Blair et al., 2001, 2004; Dadds et al., 2006; Fairchild et al., 2009). Impairments in the recognition of fear and sadness in particular have been interpreted as evidence for amygdala

0 20 40 60 80 100 25% 50% 75% 100% H ap p in es s re co g n iti o n s co re (% ) Intensity YO I+ YO I+ RT YO I- YO I- RT

dysfunction, particularly in psychopathy (e.g. Marsh et al., 2008), whereas anger recognition impairments have been associated with orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction (Blair et al., 1999).

We demonstrated that the intervention had a positive effect on emotion recognition scores. There was a general improvement in the recognition of fear, which was specific to the YO I+ group. Compared to pretest fear scores, YO I+, but not YO I-, showed significant improvement in recognising fear at retest. Moreover, during retest the YO I+ group

recognised significantly more fearful expressions than the YO I- group.

Similarly, analyses of sadness and anger recognition indicated that, compared to pretest recognition scores, the YO I+ group, but not YO I-, showed a significant improvement in recognition of sadness and anger during retest. In particular, at retest YO I+ recognised significantly more angry and marginally more sad faces than the YO I- group.

Interestingly, although differences in happiness recognition abilities were not expected, differential scores across the YO I groups were noted. During the retest, YO I+ recognised significantly more happy faces compared to YO I-. Whilst the two groups showed statistically similar recognition rates during pretest, the YO I- group’s recognition of

happiness was significantly worse during retest whilst the YO I+ group’s happiness scores remained unchanged. It seems unlikely that this is due to an actual deterioration over a two- week period in the ability to recognise happiness, but rather a result of the ceiling effect. Participants had very high scores to begin with, and when conducting a re-test without doing anything in the interval scores might drop.

We have demonstrated that emotion recognition can be improved in a sample of adolescent offenders who have known emotion detection impairments, and one might speculate that in the end this could affect the neural processes involved in emotion

recognition. Cognitive training has not only been demonstrated to positively affect empathy (Dadds et al., in press) and reduce emotion recognition biases (Penton-Voak et al., 2012), but

also to impact on brain functioning by affecting the underlying neural and anatomical networks (e.g. Olesen et al., 2004). If this intervention can alter young offenders’ neural activity and produce long-term improvement in recognition, then it would provide a cost- effective and relatively quick way of managing a population of individuals whose combined offending produces the majority of harm in their communities. Moreover, because of their age, young offenders have greater brain plasticity than adults (van Goozen & Fairchild, 2008), we suggest there is a greater chance of enduring success than the current approaches to treatment.

One limitation of the study is the absence of a control group of adolescent boys who also completed the pretest and retest of the FER test. By including an group of control

adolescents it would have been possible to confirm once more that adolescents who engage in ASB display recognition deficits compared to a group of age-, SES- and IQ- matched control youths, whilst also controlling for repeated testing effects. Consequently, testing of control adolescents is currently being carried out.

An additional consideration is that although we suggest that young offenders’ brain functioning may ultimately alter as a result of improved emotion recognition, future studies are needed to confirm this. Neuroimaging research could establish whether amygdala functioning can be altered in young offenders through administering this intervention. Similarly, in order to assess the long-term impact of this intervention on ASB, subsequent follow-up assessments of this sample’s ASB will need to be conducted.

In summary, the current findings provide evidence that emotion recognition can be improved through administering a targeted intervention to a group of youths who come into contact with the offending services for a wide range of different types of antisocial behaviour problems (van Goozen & Fairchild, 2008). Compared to age-, IQ-, and SES-matched

improvements in the recognition of fear, sadness, and anger. As emotion recognition plays a key role in ASB (Blair, 2001), we propose that such an intervention should have a positive effect on future ASB and therefore have a beneficial impact on the lives of young people and their communities.