This study aimed to evaluate the emotion recognition abilities of adults (n = 23) with an
intellectual disability (ID) compared with a control group of children (n = 23) without ID
matched for estimated cognitive ability. The study examined the impact of: task paradigm,
stimulus type and preferred processing style (global/local) on accuracy. We found that, after
controlling for estimated cognitive ability, the control group performed significantly better
than the individuals with ID. This provides some support for the emotion specificity
hypothesis. Having a more local processing style did not significantly mediate the relation
between having ID and emotion recognition,but did significantly predict emotion recognition
ability after controlling for group. This suggests that processing style is related to emotion
recognition independently of having ID. The availability of contextual information improved
emotion recognition for people with ID when compared with line drawing stimuli, and
identifying a target emotion from a choice of two was relatively easier for individuals with ID,
compared with the other task paradigms. The results of the study are considered in the
context of current theories of emotion recognition deficits in individuals with ID.