Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits Research Articles

Accuracy for subtle facial emotional expressions among individuals with borderline personality disorder symptoms and diagnoses.

Many studies, yielding mixed results, have examined whether individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have skills or deficits in facial emotion recognition (FER). The present studies explored this issue in 2 samples using 3 novel approaches: First, we examined BPD symptoms continuously in a nonclinical sample. Second, we examined the ability of individuals with BPD or elevated BPD symptoms to accurately identify emotions in static faces presented with emotional expressions ranging from neutral to subtle to fully expressed emotion. Third, we parsed accuracy into both correctly identifying an emotion and correctly ruling out an emotion that is not present. In Study 1, the relation between FER and BPD symptoms was examined in a nonclinical sample of undergraduates. In Study 2, individuals with BPD were compared with individuals with current major depression and healthy controls. In the nonclinical sample, BPD symptoms were unrelated to FER. In the clinical sample, we found evidence for enhanced accuracy for subtle and fully expressed facial emotions among individuals with BPD. Specifically, the ability to rule out an emotion when it was in fact not displayed emerged as the source of this increased accuracy. In addition, we did not find evidence of a bias for incorrectly labeling neutral faces as negative emotional expressions in either sample. Our results expand upon existing FER research in BPD that has largely relied on fully expressed emotional stimuli by demonstrating higher accuracy among individuals with BPD for identifying subtle emotional states. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The neural underpinnings of facial emotion recognition in ischemic stroke patients.

Deficits in facial emotion recognition occur frequently after stroke, with adverse social and behavioural consequences. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural underpinnings of the recognition of emotional expressions, in particular of the distinct basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise). A group of 110 ischaemic stroke patients with lesions in (sub)cortical areas of the cerebrum was included. Emotion recognition was assessed with the Ekman 60 Faces Test of the FEEST. Patient data were compared to data of 162 matched healthy controls (HC’s). For the patients, whole brain voxel‐based lesion–symptom mapping (VLSM) on 3‐Tesla MRI images was performed. Results showed that patients performed significantly worse than HC’s on both overall recognition of emotions, and specifically of disgust, fear, sadness and surprise. VLSM showed significant lesion–symptom associations for FEEST total in the right fronto‐temporal region. Additionally, VLSM for the distinct emotions showed, apart from overlapping brain regions (insula, putamen and Rolandic operculum), also regions related to specific emotions. These were: middle and superior temporal gyrus (anger); caudate nucleus (disgust); superior corona radiate white matter tract, superior longitudinal fasciculus and middle frontal gyrus (happiness) and inferior frontal gyrus (sadness). Our findings help in understanding how lesions in specific brain regions can selectively affect the recognition of the basic emotions.

Development and Validation of Emotion Recognition Software in the Indian Population

Though written extensively, recent debates on universality of emotions have shown that age, gender, and ethnicity have greater implications in the ability to identify expressions from faces. Facial emotion recognition deficits have been consistently shown in psychiatric conditions, which necessitates the need to construct a culturally sensitive tool. Fourteen actors depicted emotions such as happy, sad, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and neutrality. From a total of 126 images, participants rated in terms of intensity and accuracy. Final software was developed with 28 images, and mean accuracy and reaction time were obtained. Friedman’s significance test revealed a significant effect of emotion on its different dimensions. This study helped establish a culturally sensitive emotion recognition tool with the Indian population, which can be used in mental health settings for screening purposes and aid in developing rehabilitation modules.

Facial Emotion Recognition and Polymorphisms of Dopaminergic Pathway Genes in Children with ASD

Background It is inconclusive whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience a deficit in facial emotion recognition. The dopaminergic pathway has been implicated in the pathogenesis of ASD. This study was aimed at determining facial emotion recognition and its correlation with polymorphisms in the dopaminergic pathway genes in children with ASD. Methods Facial emotion recognition was examined in 98 children with ASD and 60 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. The severity of ASD was evaluated using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS). DNA from blood cells was used to analyze the genotypes of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in dopaminergic pathway genes. SNPs of DBH rs1611115, DDC rs6592961, DRD1 rs251937, DRD2 rs4630328, and DRD3 rs167771 were analyzed. Results Children with ASD took a significantly longer time to recognize all facial emotions, and their interpretations were less accurate for anger at low intensity and fear at both low and high intensities. The severity of the disease was associated with significant delays in recognition of all facial emotions and with a decrease in accuracy in recognition of happiness and anger at low intensity. Accuracy in recognizing fear at high intensity and sadness at low intensity was associated with rs251937 and rs4630328, respectively, in children with ASD. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that SNP rs167771, response time for the recognition of happiness, sadness and fear, and accuracy in recognition of anger and fear were all associated with the risk of childhood ASD. Conclusions Children with ASD experience a deficit in facial emotion recognition. Certain SNPs in the dopaminergic pathway genes are associated with accuracy in recognizing selective facial emotions in children with ASD.

Relationships between facial emotion recognition, internalizing symptoms, and social problems in young children

Child adjustment is negatively impacted by interpersonal difficulties, which may derive in part from poor emotion recognition skills. Independent bodies of research indicate that facial emotion recognition (FER) deficits are associated with internalizing symptoms in children, and that internalizing symptoms are linked to social difficulties. However, FER, internalizing problems, and social difficulties have not been simultaneously investigated in young children. The current study connects these disparate literatures by testing in a sample of youth (N = 87, mean age = 7.83 years; 56% female) the hypothesis that internalizing symptoms mediate the effect of FER difficulties on social problems, controlling for externalizing problems. To examine generalizability across emotions, FER was considered separately for fear, sad, angry, and happy expressions. Findings partially supported the hypothesis that internalizing problems mediate the relationship between FER and social problems, specifically for fear FER. An alternative model was also supported, suggesting fear FER may lead to social problems, which in turn increase internalizing symptoms. Although preliminary, these findings shed light on relationships between child FER, affective pathology, and social difficulties. Future studies should test these models in a longitudinal or experimental framework to establish causality and inform early interventions for child social problems.

Facial emotion recognition in children with externalising behaviours: A systematic review.

Difficulties in facial emotion recognition (FER) are associated with a range of mental health and antisocial presentations in adolescents and adults. Externalising behaviours in children are often one of the earliest signs of risk for the development of such difficulties. This article systematically reviews the evidence (from both group and correlational studies) for whether there is a relationship between FER and externalising behaviours in pre-adolescent children (aged 12 and under), both across and within externalising behaviour domains (hyperactivity, conduct problems, callous-unemotional traits, and aggression). Four electronic databases were searched producing 1,296 articles. Articles were included if they used validated measures of FER and externalising behaviours. Sixteen articles met criteria for inclusion in the review. Overall, the results suggested FER problems are present in ADHD, CP and callous-unemotional presentations, and in samples of children with higher levels of externalising problems rather than in community samples. However, there was no consistent evidence for specific emotions being implicated in the studies reviewed. Clinically, the findings suggest that FER difficulties are commonly associated with externalising behaviours, and hence this review offers some support that FER deficits could be a relevant target of intervention for externalising behaviours. However, more longitudinal studies are required, that control for other variables that might underlie FER difficulties (e.g. IQ or basic Theory of Mind abilities), to inform our knowledge of whether FER difficulties are a causal factor in externalising behaviours.

Correlations between facial emotion recognition and cognitive flexibility in autism spectrum disorder

Purpose Various studies have examined the role of executive functions in autism, but there is a lack of research in the current literature on cognitive flexibility in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The purpose of this study is to investigate whether cognitive flexibility deficits could be related to facial emotion recognition deficits in ASD. Design/methodology/approach In total, 20 children with ASD and 20 typically developing children, matched for intelligence quotient and gender, were examined both in facial emotion recognition tasks and in cognitive flexibility tasks through the dimensional change card sorting task. Findings Despite cognitive flexibility not being a core deficit in ASD, impaired cognitive flexibility is evident in the present research. Results show that cognitive flexibility is related to facial emotion recognition and support the hypothesis of an executive specific deficit in children with autism. Research limitations/implications One of the limit is the use of just one cognitive test to measure cognitive flexibility and facial recognition. This could be important to be taken into account in the new research. By increasing the number of common variables assessing cognitive flexibility, this will allow for a better comparison between studies to characterize impairment in cognitive flexibility in ASD. Practical implications Investigating impairment in cognitive flexibility may help to plan training intervention based on the induction of flexibility. Social implications If the authors implement cognitive flexibility people with ASD can have also an effect on their social behavior and overcome the typical and repetitive behaviors that are the hallmark of ASD. Originality/value The originality is to relate cognitive flexibility deficits to facial emotion.

Social cognition and executive functions in children and adolescents with focal epilepsy.

Deficits in facial emotion recognition and Theory of Mind are frequent in patients with epilepsy. Although this evidence, studies on pediatric age are few and the relation between these abilities and other cognitive domain remains to be better elucidated. The purpose of our study is to evaluate facial emotion recognition and Theory of Mind in children and adolescents with focal epilepsy, and correlate them with intelligence and executive functions. Our work is a cross-sectional observational study. Sixty-two children and adolescents aged between 7-16 years diagnosed by focal epilepsy and 32 sex/age-matched controls were recruited. All participants were administered a standardized battery tests to assess social cognition (NEPSY-II), executive functions (EpiTrack Junior) and cognitive non-verbal level (Raven Progressive Matrices). Emotion recognition mean score was significantly lower in the epilepsy group than in the controls to Student's t-test (p<0.05). Epilepsy group showed an impairment in happiness, sadness, anger and fear recognition, compared to controls (p<0.05). Theory of Mind mean score was also significantly lower in epilepsy group than controls (p<0.05). Deficits in emotion recognition seemed to be related to low age at onset of epilepsy, long duration of disease, low executive functions and low non-verbal intelligence. Deficits in Theory of Mind seemed to be related to a high seizure frequency. Our results suggest that children and adolescents with focal epilepsy had deficit in facial emotion recognition and Theory of Mind, compared to their peer. Both these difficulties seem to be related to some features of epilepsy itself. Our results also suggest that deficits in facial emotion recognition are potentially related to difficulties in executive functions and non-verbal intelligence. More studies are needed to confirm these hypotheses.

Sensitivity and specificity of a facial emotion recognition test in classifying patients with schizophrenia

BackgroundSchizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness that causes significant disability. However, the lack of evidence for functional decline yields difficulty in distinguishing patients with schizophrenia from healthy adults. Since patients with schizophrenia demonstrate severe facial emotion recognition deficit (FERD), FERD measurement appears to be a promising solution for the aforementioned challenge.We aimed to develop a FERD-based screening tool to differentiates patients with schizophrenia from healthy adults. MethodsPatients' responses were extracted from a previous study. The most discriminative index was determined by comparing the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of patients’ FER scores in 7 domains individually and collectively. The best cut-off score was selected only for the most discriminative index to provide both high sensitivity and specificity (≥ 0.90). ResultsThe “number of domains failed” showed the highest discriminative value (AUC = 0.92). Since high sensitivity and specificity could not be achieved simultaneously, two sub-optimal cut-off scores were recommended for prospective users. For users prioritizing sensitivity, the “≥ 2 domains failed” index yields high sensitivity (0.96) with modest specificity (0.66). For users targeting specificity, the “≥ 4 domains failed” indexachieves high specificity (0.92) with acceptable sensitivity (0.72). LimitationsConvenience sampling with mild clinical severity and younger healthy adults (< 20 years old) may limit the generalizability. ConclusionThe FERD screener seems to be a discriminative tool with changeable cut-off scores achieving high sensitivity or specificity. Therefore, it may be useful in detecting patients and ruling out adults erroneously suspected of having schizophrenia.

T52. COGNITION, METACOGNITION AND SOCIAL COGNITION AFTER A FIRST EPISODE PSYCHOSIS. PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM A 5-YEAR-FOLLOW-UP STUDY

BackgroundCognitive impairment is considered a core feature of psychotic disorders. Deficits in cognition, metacognition and social cognition have been reported to be correlated, and indeed predictors, of functional outcome or level of disability. Psychotic patients tend to present lower IQ and show impairment in specific cognitive domains, and in social cognition, than controls. Several studies have found deficits in facial emotion recognition (FER) and a higher prevalence of the jumping to conclusions (JTC) reasoning and data gathering biases among psychotic patients, even at time of illness onset, compared to controls. However, the trajectory of this impairment remains unclear. Only a few studies have jointly investigated longitudinally the course of neurocognitive and social cognitive deficits, emotional processing, and JTC. Therefore, this study aimed to explore long-term trajectories of IQ, JTC, and FER using 5-year follow up (FU) data.Methods36 patients with First Episode Psychosis (FEP) and 70 controls from the London subsample of the EUGEI study were followed up after 5 years. Sociodemographic, clinical and neuropsychological assessments were performed at baseline and 5-year-follow-up. Current IQ was measured using WAIS III short form, JTC bias through the 60:40 beads task, and FER using Degraded Facial Affect Recognition (DFAR) task. In STATA 15, repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyse changes between baseline and follow up scores.ResultsMean IQ scores for patients were 88.4 (20) at baseline and 92.6 (SD 17.9) at FU. For controls, IQ scores were 104.5 (SD 18.4) at baseline and 108.9 (SD 19.5) at FU. For patients, mean number of beads was 3.9 (SD 4) at baseline and 3.2 (SD 3.4) at FU, while controls decided after 6.3 (SD 4.6) beads on average at baseline and 6.5 (SD 3.2) at FU. For patients, mean DFAR scores were overall [baseline: 72.5 (SD 16); FU: 72.4 (SD 18.1)], neutral [baseline: 79 (SD 19.1); FU: 76.5 (SD 24.3)], happy [baseline: 86.9 (SD 16.9); FU: 88.4 (SD 18.9)], fearful [baseline: 51.3 (25.6); FU: 54.2 (SD 20.9)], angry [baseline: 72.8 (24.3); FU: 70.4 (26.9)]. For controls, mean DFAR scores were overall [baseline: 76.3 (SD 8.6); FU: 75.4 (SD 8.7)], neutral [baseline: 82.2 (SD 12.8); FU: 84.9 (SD 13.1)], happy [baseline: 93 (SD 7.9); FU: 90.7 (SD 8.5)], fearful [baseline: 60.5 (18.1); FU: 58.1 (SD 20.3)], angry [baseline: 69.5 (19.5); FU: 58.1 (20.3)]. Repeated-measures ANOVA showed that patients scored significantly lower than controls on: IQ [F(1,103) = 22.6, p < 0.001], beads task [F(1,104) = 12.5, p = 0.0006], DFAR overall [F(1,101) = 6.94, p = 0.0096], DFAR neutral [F(1,101) = 10.36, p = 0.0017], DFAR happy [F(1,101) = 7.88, p = 0.0059] and DFAR fearful [F(1,101) = 5.45, p = 0.0213]. There was a significant effect of time for IQ scores [F(1,103) = 19.4, p > 0.001], but no time*group interaction. There was no significant main effect of time or time*group interaction for beads task and all DFAR scores.DiscussionIn line with previous literature, lower IQ was found in the patients group, both at baseline and 5-year-follow-up. Likewise, jumping to conclusion bias and facial emotion recognition impairments were prominent in patients compared to controls. Preliminary Results: pointed out small yet significant improvement in current IQ for both groups. Nonetheless, JTC bias and deficits in recognising emotional facial expressions were found to be steady along the course of the illness. Further research is warranted to examine the association between those impairments and functional outcome.

M74. FACIAL EMOTION RECOGNITION ABILITY IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA AND OTHER PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS

BackgroundPsychotic disorders are associated with impaired facial emotion recognition (FER) and poor functional outcome. Most studies regarding facial emotion recognition have focused on schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to explore FER in patients with different psychotic disorders at psychiatric outpatient facilities. The intention was also to examine if patients diagnosed with schizophrenia differed from patients diagnosed with other psychotic disorders in the ability to recognize facial emotions.MethodsFER was examined in forty outpatients, evenly divided between schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders and 33 healthy control persons. The ability to recognize facial emotions was assessed with The Facially Expressed Emotion Labelling (FEEL). To assess the severity of psychotic symptoms in the patient group The Structured Clinical Interview for Symptoms of Remission (SCI-SR) was used.ResultsPatients performed significantly worse than healthy controls (p<.001, r =-.28) in recognizing facial emotions in general, including expressions of fear, disgust and sadness. Subjects with a schizophrenia diagnosis performed poorer than healthy controls when depicting fear (p<.01, r=.45) or anger (p=.026, r=.36). Compared to other psychotic disorders they were less accurate in recognizing anger (p=.036, r=-.040). We did not find any significant differences between patients with other psychotic disorders and healthy controls in FER. Furthermore, patients performed significantly slower on the FEEL test (p<.001, r=0.44), including both patients with a schizophrenia diagnosis and other psychotic disorders as compared to healthy controls. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia showed significantly more psychotic symptoms (p= .001, r= -.53). However, there were no significant differences between patients in remission (40 %) and patients with more severe psychotic symptoms regarding the FEEL measures.DiscussionIn this study, patients with psychotic disorders performed less accurately and slower on the FEEL task as compared to healthy control persons. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia tended to exhibit more difficulties. The results from this between-group comparison should however be interpreted with caution due to limited statistical power. Since no significant difference in FEEL score was demonstrated between patients in remission and patients suffering from more severe psychotic symptoms, it could be suggested that deficits in FER are independent of current psychotic symptoms. Impaired facial emotion recognition ability may negatively influence social interaction and functional outcome and the results from this study indicate that FER should be further explored in larger cohorts of outpatients with different psychotic disorders.

Facial emotion recognition deficits in patients with bipolar disorder and their healthy parents

BackgroundThere is evidence on deficits in facial emotion recognition (FER) in patients with bipolar disorder (BD), and these deficits may be present in individuals with genetic risk for BD. This study investigated facial emotion identification and discrimination abilities in patients with BD, their parents, and healthy controls. Materials and methodsThis study included 38 patients with bipolar I disorder and 30 healthy controls for patients as well as 30 healthy mothers and 30 healthy fathers of these patients and 30 healthy controls who matched the mothers and fathers for age, gender, and education (total 188 participants). Facial Emotion Identification and Discrimination Tests were applied to all participants; the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and Young Mania Rating Scale were applied to patients and their control group. ResultsFacial Emotion Identification and Discrimination Test scores of patients and their parents were reasonably lower than their matching control groups. Moreover, we found that difficulty in FER affected more emotions in mothers than in fathers and mothers performed significantly worse than patients in the identification of angry and embarrassed faces. ConclusionThese findings indicate that parents of patients with BD have impairment with recognizing facial emotions and suggest that there may be an association between FER of patients with BD and that of their mothers.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between genetic risk for schizophrenia and facial emotion recognition

BackgroundRecent research has highlighted that facial emotion recognition deficits are more common in people with schizophrenia, but the reason for this association is not well understood. Comparing facial recognition deficits in unaffected individuals at higher genetic risk for schizophrenia with individuals at lower genetic risk could increase our understanding of this relationship. MethodsWe systematically reviewed studies reporting on the relationship between genetic risk of schizophrenia and facial emotion recognition deficits. Meta-analyses were performed where sufficient data were available, otherwise we conducted narrative summaries. Meta-analyses were performed both for generalised and specific facial emotion recognition deficits. Results34 studies were included in this review with 23 included in meta-analyses. Meta-analysis indicated strong evidence of a deficit in facial emotion recognition in first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia compared with controls (SMD 0.38 95% CI 0.26 to 0.51, p ≤ 0.001). Further meta-analyses demonstrated strong evidence of a deficit in the recognition of negative valence facial expressions (SMD 0.19 CI 0.06 to 0.32, p = 0.004) but no evidence of deficit in the recognition of neutral or positive valance. ConclusionsThere is strong evidence of facial emotion recognition deficits in first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia. Our findings suggest that such deficits in people with schizophrenia arise prior to the onset of the disorder, though cannot inform whether that association is causal or due to confounding. Emotion recognition deficits, particularly to negative emotions, might be useful predictors of schizophrenia risk.

The Ability to Visually Recognize Facial Emotions during the Initial Stages of Alzheimer’s

Background: Alzheimer’s sufferers (AS) are unable to visually recognize facial emotions (VRFE). However, we do not know the kind of emotions involved, the timeline for the onset of this loss of ability to recognize facial emotional expressions during the natural course of this disease and the existence of any correlation with other comorbid cognitive disorders. For that reason, the authors aimed to determine whether a deficit in facial emotion recognition is present at the onset of Alzheimer disease, distinctly and concurrently with the onset of cognitive impairment or is it a prodromal syndrome of Alzheimer’s Disease before the onset of cognitive decline and what emotions are involved. A secondary aim was to investigate relationships between facial emotion recognition and cognitive performance on various parameters. Method: Single Blind Case-control study. Setting in Memory clinic. Participants: 12 patients, (AS) and 12 control subjects (CS) were enrolled. Measurements: Quantitative information about the ability for facial emotion recognition was obtained from Method of Analysis and Research on the Integration of Emotions (MARIE). The Mini Mental Status Examination (MMSE), the Picture Naming, the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (DRS), and the Grober & Buschke Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) tests were used to measure cognitive impairment. Results: We note that the AS have a problem with the visual recognition of facial emotions with existence of a higher threshold for visual recognition. The AS is less sensitive to the visual recognition cues of facial emotions. AS is unable to distinguish anger from fear. It would be a possible explanation for some acts of aggressiveness seen in the clinical and home setting demonstrated by “AS with behavioral disturbance”. The anger-fear series was found to be the first affected in the course of Alzheimer’s. The appearance of the curve is sigmoid for the control group and linear for the Alzheimer’s patients with a cognitive distortion when the VRFE is represented graphically with percentage of correct recognition plotted on the “y” axis and the selected images presented as stimulus with measures of density of emotion plotted on the “x” axis. In both groups, it is intuitively and theoretically expected that correct recognition will be directly proportional to the density of represented emotion in the stimulus image. This hypothesis is true for CS but not so for AS. The MARIE (see below) processing of emotions seems to be strengthened by the optimal cognitive functions showing the hypothesis applies to CS but not uniformly in AS. This anomaly in the AS is evidenced by the decline of the cognitive functions contributing to abovementioned “linearization” in the graphic representation. There is a direct positive correlation between the results of MARIE and the performance on cognitive tests. Conclusion: The administration of a combination of DRS, FCSRT, and MARIE to patients screened for possibly emerging Alzheimer’s could provide a more detailed and specific approach to make a definitive early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. The Alzheimer’s patients found it difficult to distinguish between anger and fear.

In the eyes of the beholder: investigating the effect of visual probing on accuracy and gaze fixations when attending to facial expressions among primary and secondary callous-unemotional variants

Individuals with callous-unemotional (CU) traits show deficits in facial emotion recognition. According to preliminary research, this impairment may be due to attentional neglect to peoples’ eyes when evaluating emotionally expressive faces. However, it is unknown whether this atypical processing pattern is unique to established variants of CU traits or modifiable with intervention. This study examined facial affect recognition and gaze patterns among individuals (N = 80; M age = 19.95, SD = 1.01 years; 50% female) with primary vs secondary CU variants. These groups were identified based on repeated measurements of conduct problems, CU traits, and anxiety assessed in adolescence and adulthood. Accuracy and number of fixations on areas of interest (forehead, eyes, and mouth) while viewing six dynamic emotions were assessed. A visual probe was used to direct attention to various parts of the face. Individuals with primary and secondary CU traits were less accurate than controls in recognizing facial expressions across all emotions. Those identified in the low-anxious primary-CU group showed reduced overall fixations to fearful and painful facial expressions compared to those in the high-anxious secondary-CU group. This difference was not specific to a region of the face (i.e. eyes or mouth). Findings point to the importance of investigating both accuracy and eye gaze fixations, since individuals in the primary and secondary groups were only differentiated in the way they attended to specific facial expression. These findings have implications for differentiated interventions focused on improving facial emotion recognition with regard to attending and correctly identifying emotions.

Social cognition impairments in long-term opiate users in treatment.

Long-term opiate users experience pervasive social difficulties, but there has been surprisingly limited research focused on social-cognitive functioning in this population. The aim of this study was to investigate whether three important aspects of social cognition (facial emotion recognition, theory of mind (ToM) and rapid facial mimicry) differ between long-term opiate users and healthy controls. The participants were 25 long-term opiate users who were enrolled in opiate substitution programmes, and 25 healthy controls. Facial emotion recognition accuracy was indexed by responses to 60 photographs of faces depicting the six basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust). ToM was assessed using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task, which requires participants to infer mental states of others from partial facial cues. Rapid facial mimicry was assessed by recording activity in the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii muscle regions while participants passively viewed images of happy and angry facial expressions. Relative to the control group, the opiate user group exhibited deficits in both facial emotion recognition and ToM. Moreover, only control participants exhibited typical rapid facial mimicry responses to happy facial expressions. These data indicate that long-term opiate users exhibit abnormalities in three distinct areas of social-cognitive processing, pointing to the need for additional work to establish how social-cognitive functioning relates to functional outcomes in this group. Such work may ultimately inform the development of interventions aimed at improving treatment outcomes for long-term opiate users.

Attention Modification to Attenuate Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits in Children with Autism: A Pilot Study.

Diminished attending to faces may contribute to the impairments in emotion recognition and expression in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study evaluated the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of an attention modification intervention designed to attenuate deficits in facial emotion recognition (FER). During the 10-session experimental treatment, children (n = 8) with ASD watched dynamic videos of people expressing different emotions with the facial features highlighted to guide children's attention. Children and their parents generally rated the treatment as acceptable and helpful. Although FER improvement was not apparent on task-based measures, parents reported slight improvements and decreased socioemotional problems following treatment. Results suggest that further research on visual attention retraining for ASD, within an experimental therapeutic program, may be promising.

Categorization of emotional faces in schizophrenia patients: An ERP study

Schizophrenia patients often show deficits in facial emotion recognition, which contributes to their poor social functioning. The present study investigated the time course of categorization of emotional faces in schizophrenia patients by recording and analyzing ERPs elicited by emotional faces. Behavioral data show that in comparison with controls, schizophrenia patients categorized emotional faces more slowly with decreased accuracy and did not show evident positive classification advantage. The ERP data showed that the N170 decreased in schizophrenia patients although it was not modulated by facial emotions. In comparison with controls, schizophrenia patients exhibited the lack of frontal and posterior N2 components and decreased P3 component, without P3 modulation of emotional faces. These data provide new evidence for the dysfunction of processing emotional faces in schizophrenia patients.

Effects of Age and Hearing Loss on the Recognition of Emotions in Speech.

Emotional communication is a cornerstone of social cognition and informs human interaction. Previous studies have shown deficits in facial and vocal emotion recognition in older adults, particularly for negative emotions. However, few studies have examined combined effects of aging and hearing loss on vocal emotion recognition by adults. The objective of this study was to compare vocal emotion recognition in adults with hearing loss relative to age-matched peers with normal hearing. We hypothesized that age would play a role in emotion recognition and that listeners with hearing loss would show deficits across the age range. Thirty-two adults (22 to 74 years of age) with mild to severe, symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss, amplified with bilateral hearing aids and 30 adults (21 to 75 years of age) with normal hearing, participated in the study. Stimuli consisted of sentences spoken by 2 talkers, 1 male, 1 female, in 5 emotions (angry, happy, neutral, sad, and scared) in an adult-directed manner. The task involved a single-interval, five-alternative forced-choice paradigm, in which the participants listened to individual sentences and indicated which of the five emotions was targeted in each sentence. Reaction time was recorded as an indirect measure of cognitive load. Results showed significant effects of age. Older listeners had reduced accuracy, increased reaction times, and reduced d' values. Normal hearing listeners showed an Age by Talker interaction where older listeners had more difficulty identifying male vocal emotion. Listeners with hearing loss showed reduced accuracy, increased reaction times, and lower d' values compared with age-matched normal-hearing listeners. Within the group with hearing loss, age and talker effects were significant, and low-frequency pure-tone averages showed a marginally significant effect. Contrary to other studies, once hearing thresholds were taken into account, no effects of listener sex were observed, nor were there effects of individual emotions on accuracy. However, reaction times and d' values showed significant differences between individual emotions. The results of this study confirm existing findings in the literature showing that older adults show significant deficits in voice emotion recognition compared with their normally hearing peers, and that among listeners with normal hearing, age-related changes in hearing do not predict this age-related deficit. The present results also add to the literature by showing that hearing impairment contributes additionally to deficits in vocal emotion recognition, separate from deficits related to age. These effects of age and hearing loss appear to be quite robust, being evident in reduced accuracy scores and d' measures, as well as in reaction time measures.

Facial mimicry, facial emotion recognition and alexithymia in post-traumatic stress disorder

Individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show abnormalities in higher-order emotional processes, including emotion regulation and recognition. However, automatic facial responses to observed facial emotion (facial mimicry) has not yet been investigated in PTSD. Furthermore, whereas deficits in facial emotion recognition have been reported, little is known about contributing factors. We thus investigated facial mimicry and potential effects of alexithymia and expressive suppression on facial emotion recognition in PTSD. Thirty-eight PTSD participants, 43 traumatized and 33 non-traumatized healthy controls completed questionnaires assessing alexithymia and expressive suppression. Facial electromyography was measured from the muscles zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii during a facial emotion recognition task. Corrugator activity was increased in response to negative emotional expressions compared to zygomaticus activity and vice versa for positive emotions, but no significant group differences emerged. Individuals with PTSD reported greater expressive suppression and alexithymia than controls, but only levels of alexithymia predicted lower recognition of negative facial expressions. While automatic facial responses to observed facial emotion seem to be intact in PTSD, alexithymia, but not expressive suppression, plays an important role in facial emotion recognition of negative emotions. If replicated, future research should evaluate whether successful interventions for alexithymia improve facial emotion recognition abilities.