TABLE 1.
EMOTICOM task overview.
| Emotion processing | |
| Emotional Recognition Task | Description |
| Assessment of emotion recognition. A series of emotional faces appear briefly (for 250 ms) and the participant is asked to identify the expressed emotion (happy, sad, angry, or fearful). The task has two versions: one using full faces and one showing only eyes. | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Correct identification of each emotion calculated as hit rate (%). | |
| Emotional Intensity Morphing Task | Description |
| Assessment of perceptual threshold for emotion detection. A face with a slowly morphing emotional expression is shown. The participant must indicate when they can detect the presence of an emotion (increase condition) or no longer perceive an emotion (decrease condition). The emotional expressions include happy, sad, angry, fearful, and disgusted. | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Intensity threshold for detection of each emotion in both the increase and decrease condition. | |
| Face Affective Go/No-Go Task | Description |
| Assessment of information processing bias in identification of emotional faces. A series of emotional faces (happy, sad, angry, or fearful) is shown and the participant is asked to respond only to a specific emotion while ignoring other emotions. | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Discrimination accuracy of emotional faces indexed as d-prime scores for each emotion. | |
| Motivation and reward | |
| Reinforcement Learning Task | Description |
| Assessment of learning based on reward and punishment. A series of paired colored circles is shown and the participants is asked to choose one circle. Each color has either a high or low chance of eliciting a monetary reward (win condition) or a high or low risk of eliciting monetary loss (loss condition). | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Learning rate (alpha) calculated with a reinforcement learning rate algorithm for both the no-loss and no-win condition. | |
| Monetary Incentive Reward Task | Description |
| Assessment of effort to avoid punishment and gain reward. The participant is asked to respond as quickly as possible when a black box appears between two circles each containing two lines. The distance between the lines indicate the size of the loss or gain for each trial. A faster response elicits greater reward/smaller loss. | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Average change in reaction time relative to baseline reaction time for both the win and loss condition. | |
| Progressive Ratio Task | Description |
| Assessment of motivational breakpoint. Four boxes of varying sizes are shown and the participant is asked to select the odd one out. The frequency and size of monetary reward for successfully completing each trial is gradually decreased. The participant is told they can quit at any time but must still wait passively for the remainder of the task’s run time. | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Motivational break-point, i.e., the number of trials the participant completes before quitting the task. | |
| Adapted Cambridge Gambling Task | Description |
| Assessment of decision making and risk-taking behavior. The participant is shown a roulette wheel divided into two colors; the proportion of each color changes in every trial, representing different odds. The participant is asked to choose the color they wish to bet on as well as the size of their bet. The task consists of a win and a loss condition. | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Risk adjustment score indexing optimizing behavior in both the win and loss condition. | |
| Social cognition | |
| Moral Emotions Task | Description |
| Assessment of emotional reactions to moral social situations. The participant is presented with cartoons of moral scenarios in which one character intentionally or unintentionally harms another. The participant must rate how guilty, shameful, annoyed, and bad they would feel if they were either the victim or the agent (i.e., the victimizer). | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Average ratings of guilt and shame for victim and agent scenarios. | |
| Social Information Preference Task | Description |
| Assessment of preference for different types of information. The participant is shown a socially ambiguous situation in which nine pieces of information (faces, thoughts, and facts/objects) are hidden from view. The participant is instructed to pick four pieces of information to help them decide between three different interpretations of the situations; a positive, neutral, and negative. | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| The proportion (%) of thoughts, faces, and facts chosen. | |
| Prisoners’ Dilemma | Description |
| Assessment of cooperative strategy. The participant and a computerized opponent perform a small task to collect money which is pooled. The participant is given the choice to split the money equally with the opponent or steal all the money. If both parties choose to split the money, both get half. If one steals and the other splits, the one who stole wins all the money. If both choose to steal, neither party wins any money. The participant faces three computerized opponents with different strategies: cooperative (opponent always splits), tit-for-two-tats (opponent splits until the participant steals for two consecutive trials), and aggressive (opponent starts with steal and then mirrors the participant’s behavior). | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Proportion of trials (%) in which the participant chooses to steal for each type of opponent. | |
| Ultimatum Game | Description |
| Assessment of sensitivity to fairness. The participant and a computerized opponent perform a small task to collect money which is then pooled. In some trials, the participant decides how the money is split, ranging from fair (50/50) to increasingly unfair (10/90), and in some trials the opponent decides the split, ranging from fair (50/50) to increasingly unfair (10/90). The participants may choose to either accept or decline the offers from the opponent. | |
| Primary outcomes | |
| Proportion of accepted offers. | |