Racially invariant stimuli may bias outcomes in assessment of emotion processing

Objective Difficulties identifying emotional facial expressions are commonly observed in alcohol use disorder (AUD). Critically, this work utilizes single-race stimulus sets, although study samples are not similarly constrained. This is particularly concerning given evidence among community samples showing the impact of racial incongruity, giving rise to interpretative caveats. Method Community controls (n = 55, 12 Black) and individuals with AUD (n = 46, 9 Black) completed a two-choice emotion judgment task. A similar nonaffective sex judgment task was employed as a covariate. Repeated measures mixed-model analyses were conducted with race, AUD status (AUD vs. control), and their interaction as fixed effects. Accuracy and reaction time (RT) were primary dependent measures. A post hoc analysis was conducted on efficiency (accuracy/RT). Results In addition to lower accuracy by individuals with AUD (p = .02), Black participants were less accurate than White participants (p = .0001) overall. Significant interactions between race and AUD were also detected for accuracy (p = .002), RT (p = .05), and efficiency (p = .01), wherein Black participants with AUD identified emotional expressions most poorly. This latter finding suggests that AUD-associated differences may be biased under racial incongruity. Conclusion Taken together, these preliminary findings do not reflect a deficit among Black respondents. Instead, our results reflect the need for greater attention to stimulus diversity and sensitivity to respondent demographics in emotion-processing examinations. Given the purported role of emotion processing in alcohol-related problems and the increase in racial minority representation in the U.S., elucidating these differences remains critical. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).