TRANSLATION AND VALIDATION OF BARON COHEN’S FACE TEST IN A GENERAL POPULATION FROM SPAIN
Keywords:
Baron Cohen Face Test, facial emotion recognition, validation, psychometric properties, general populationAbstract
Introduction. Facial emotion recognition is considered the foundation of effective social functioning, but it has been found impaired in several clinical populations. However, there are few validated tests to measure the ability. To the best of our knowledge, there is no validated measure in a Spanish population. We translated and validated Baron Cohen’s Face Test in a general Spanish population.
Methods. The test was administered to 211 (63.3% female) healthy volunteers between 19 and 70 years of age. We used tetrachoric matrices to obtain item per item test-retest reliability and internal consistency. We used confirmatory factor analysis to test for unidimensionality. We used Pearson correlations to examine associations between variables.
Results. The mean score was 18 (SD=1.38). Cronbach’s alfa was 0.75. Guttman Lambda 3 indexes yielded 17 out of 20 items to have excellent test-retest reliability. Gender or age differences in performance were not found. The test seems to comply with a one-dimensional structure: CFI=0.889; TLI=0.873 and RMSEA=0.047.
Conclusions. Baron Cohen’s Face Test could be a valid measure of FER, although it is not sensitive to age or gender. Because it presents a certain ceiling effect, it could not be appropriate to detect excelling performance.
