Measuring two aspects of emotion recognition ability: Accuracy vs. sensitivity

The present paper aims at showing the necessity to distinguish two aspects of emotion recognition ability, accuracy of the recognition of emotion types that constitute the emotional state of the perceived person and sensitivity to the intensity of the perceived person's emotions. A new technique that measures these two aspects of emotion recognition, the Videotest of Emotion Recognition, is proposed. The accuracy and sensitivity indices provided by the Videotest of Emotion Recognition have high reliability and yield different correlation patterns with other cognitive and personality variables.