Comprehensive Affect Testing System - Complete Battery - CATS-R

Technical Manual

Script Author: Katja Borchert, Ph.D. (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Created: January 29, 2020

Last Modified: January 05, 2025 by K. Borchert (katjab@millisecond.com), Millisecond

Script Copyright © Millisecond Software, LLC

Background

This script implements the START script to run the Comprehensive Affective Testing System - Reduced (CATS-R).

The CATS and CATS-R were created by: Sarah G. Schaffer, PhD Karen B. Froming, PhD Amanda L. Gregory, PhD C. Michael Levy, PhD Paul Ekman, PhD

Subtest Manuals

Cats-R: Demographic Information

Cats 1: Identity Discrimination

Cats-R 2: Affect Discrimination

Cats-R 3: Nonemotional Prosody Discrimination

Cats-R 4: Emotional Prosody Discrimination

Cats-R 5: Affect Discrimination

Cats-R 6: Name Emotional Prosody

Cats-R 7: Name Emotional Prosody

Cats-R 8: Select Affect

Cats-R 9: Conflicting Prosody—Attend To Prosody

Cats-R 10: Conflicting Prosody—Attend To Meaning

Cats-R 11: Match Emotional Prosody To Emotional Face

Cats-R 12: Match Emotional Face To Emotional Prosody

Cats-R 13: Three Faces Test

Cats-R: Summary Data File

References

Reference for Means and Standard Deviations used to calculate z-scores:

Emotion Processing: The Comprehensive Affective Testing System. User Manual. Published 2006 by Psychology Software Inc Emotion Processing: The Comprehensive Affective Testing System. User Manual. Published 2006 by Psychology Software Inc

Duration

2 minutes

Procedure

The Comprehensive Affective Testing System - Reduced (CATS-R) consists of 13 subtests:

subtest1: Identity Discrimination
subtest2: Affect Discrimination
subtest3: Nonemotional Prosody Discrimination
subtest4: Emotional Prosody Discrimination
subtest5: Name Affect
subtest6: Name Emotional Prosody
subtest7: Match Affect
subtest8: Select Affect
subtest9: Conflicting Prosody - Attend to Prosody
subtest10: Conflicting Prosody - Attend to Meaning
subtest11: Match Emotional Prosody to Emotional Face
subtest12: Match Emotional Face to Emotional Prosody
subtest 13: 3 Faces Test

This START script is a batch script that automatically runs

(1) cats_demographics.iqjs: this script collects demographic information

(2) the number of subtests selected in the order specified:
catsr_subtest1.iqjs - catsr_subtest13.iqjs
NOTES:
1. edit the order and/or selection of subtests to run below under the batch-element
2. each subtest generates its own data files. Check individual scripts for the data output
dictionaries.

(3) catsr_summary.iqjs: the final script alerts the user that the end has been reached and calculates
all summary variables across subtests.
See below for summary variables or check script "catsr_summary.iqjs" for the data output dictionary.
Note that some of the summary variables assume that all subtests have been run.



The individual subtests cats_subtest1.iqjs to cats_subtest13.iqjs can be run as single scripts as well.

Raw Data

File Name: catsr_summary_raw*.iqdat

Data Fields

NameDescription
build Inquisit version number
computer.platform Device platform: win | mac |ios | android
date Date the session was run
time Time the session was run
subject Participant ID
group Group number
session Session number
version "abbreviated" (CATS-R)
age The entered age of the participant
gender The entered gender of the participant
handedness The entered handedness of the participant
diagnosis The entered diagnoses of the participant (if any)
taskOrder The order in which the selected subsets were run
zScoreFlag 0 = z-score calculations are not flagged
1 = z-score calculations are flagged
a) if no gender was provided, the z-scores use 'female' as default for score corrections
b) the script generally tries to use the nearest age group for z-score calculations when z-scores are age dependent
However, if the age of a participant is below 20 or above 79, the participant's age falls outside of the age-normed groups,
so z-scores are flagged in this script as a caution.
Validity Scales: 2 Scales Are Computed Based On 36 Easy And Comparable Items
v1 V1 = t5T2 + t5T4 + t6T6 + t6T8 + t7T2 + t7T3 + t7T4 + t9T6 + t9T8 + t11T12 + t12T1 + t12T3 + t12T4 + t12T10 + t13T3 + t13T4 + t13T10 + t13T18
v2 V2 = t6T4 + t6T9 + t7T5 + t7T11 + t7T12 + t8T2 + t8T6 + t9T10 + t9T11 + t11T8 + t12T5 + t12T7 + t12T9 + t12T12 + t13T8 + t13T17 + t13T22 + t13T24
v1Plusv2 The total of v1 and v2 (v1 + v2)
v1Plusv2ZScore Zscore of v1Plusv2
v1Plusv2CumulativePercent The cumulative percentage
once the total surpasses Q25, the script only reports ">= 25%"
v1Minusv2 The absolute difference of |v1 - v2|
v1minusv2Baserate The rate which which this difference was seen in the normative sample
the maximum reported base rate is 16%
Quotients
arq Affect Recognition Quotient Score based on the uncorrected raw scores
t2RawScore + t5RawScore + t7RawScore + t8RawScore + t13RawScore
arqCorrected Arq score based on the corrected raw scores
arqZScore The calculated zscore for the corrected arq score
prq Prosody Recognition Quotient based on the uncorrected raw scores
prq = t4RawScore + t6RawScore + t9RawScore
prqCorrected Prq score based on the corrected raw scores
prqZScore The calculated zscore for the corrected prq score
erq Emotion Recognition Quotient based on the uncorrected raw scores
erq = t2RawScore + t4RawScore + t5RawScore + t6RawScore + t7RawScore + t8RawScore + t9RawScore + t10RawScore + t11RawScore + t12RawScore + t13RawScore
erqCorrected Erq score based on the corrected raw scores of all emotional subtests (excludes subtest1 and subtest3)
erqZScore The calculated zscore for the corrected erq score
Subscales
simpleFacialScaleRaw The sum of (Subtest2 + Subtest5) raw total score
simpleFacialScaleCorrected The sum of (Subtest2 + Subtest5) corrected total score
simpleFacialScaleZScore The calculated zscore for the corrected score
complexFacialScaleRaw The sum of (Subtest7 + Subtest8 + subtest13) raw total score
complexFacialScaleCorrected The sum of the corrected total scores for these scales
complexFacialScaleZScore The calculated zscore for the corrected score
prosodyScaleRaw The sum of (Subtest4 + Subtest6 + subtest9) raw total score
prosodyScaleCorrected The sum of the corrected total scores for these scales
prosodyScaleZscore The calculated zscore for the corrected score
lexicalScaleRaw The sum of (Subtest10) raw total score*
lexicalScaleCorrected The sum of the corrected total scores for these scales
lexicalScaleZScore The calculated zscore for the corrected score
crossModalScaleTaw The sum of (Subtest10 + subtest12) raw total score*
crossModalScaleCorrected The sum of the corrected total scores for these scales
crossModalScaleZScore The calculated zscore for the corrected score
* subtest10 raw score
The Inquisit CATS-R corrected an existing scoring problem for t10T9 (subtest10) in the original CATS-R.
For more detailed info check out script catsr_subtest10.iqjs.
No corrections were made to the normative data (reported mean and standard deviation).
Subtests
t1RawScore The sum of all scores in subtest1
t1RawScoreCorrected The gender-corrected total score in subtest1 ( if gender corrected, then the correction applies to males)
t1ZScore The zscore of the gender-corrected total score in subtest1
(same for all 13 subtests)
Note1: the following subtest total scores are getting gender corrected
subtest2: males 40+ get an additional point
subtest5: males 60+ get an additional point
subtest7: males 60+ get an additional point
subtest10: males 60+ get two additional points
subtest13: males 39 and younger get two additional points, males 60+ get two additional points
Note2
The Inquisit CATS-R corrected scoring problems for t10T9 (subtest10) as well as t11T4 (subtest11).
For more detailed info check out scripts catsr_subtest10.iqjs/catsr_subtest11.iqjs.
No corrections were made to the normative data (reported means and standard deviations).
Discrete Emotion Scales
happy Sum of responses to Happy items: /Happy = t5T2 + t8T2 + t7T3 + t7T12 + t13T10 + t13T18 + t13T22 + t13T24
happyZScore The corresponding zscore
surprised Sum of responses to Surprised items: /Surprised = t5T4 + t8T6 + t7T4 + t7T5 + t13T1 + t13T14 + t13T19 + t13T20
surprisedZScore The corresponding z-score
angry Sum of responses to Angry items: /Angry = t5T6 + t8T4 + t7T1 + t7T7 + t13T2 + t13T5 + t13T11 + t13T16
angryZScore The corresponding z-score
sad Sum of responses to Sad items: /Sad = t5T1 + t8T5 + t7T6 + t7T9 + t13T3 + t13T4 + t13T8 + t13T17
sadZScore The corresponding z-score
fearfulCorr Sum of responses to Fearful items (+ 1 bonus points if Male) /Fearful_corr = t5T3 + t8T3 + t7T2 + t7T11 + t13T6 + t13T12 + t13T13 + t13T15 + (gender == "Male")
fearfulZScore The corresponding z-score
disgustedCorr Sum of responses to Disgusted items (+ 1 bonus points if Male) /Disgusted_corr = t5T5 + t8T1 + t7T8 + t7T10 + t13T7 + t13T9 + t13T21 + t13T23 + (gender == "Male"
disgustedZScore The corresponding z-scores
The Following Performance Metrics Columns Store All Individual Scores Collected
t1T1 Subtest1, problem1: 1 = correct response; 0 = error
t13T24 Subtest13, problem24: 1 = correct response; 0 = error