Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits Research Articles

Facial Recognition of Happiness Is Impaired in Musicians with High Music Performance Anxiety.

Music performance anxiety (MPA) can be defined as a lasting and intense apprehension connected with musical performance in public. Studies suggest that MPA can be regarded as a subtype of social anxiety. Since individuals with social anxiety have deficits in the recognition of facial emotion, we hypothesized that musicians with high levels of MPA would share similar impairments. The aim of this study was to compare parameters of facial emotion recognition (FER) between musicians with high and low MPA. 150 amateur and professional musicians with different musical backgrounds were assessed in respect to their level of MPA and completed a dynamic FER task. The outcomes investigated were accuracy, response time, emotional intensity, and response bias. Musicians with high MPA were less accurate in the recognition of happiness (p = 0.04; d = 0.34), had increased response bias toward fear (p = 0.03), and increased response time to facial emotions as a whole (p = 0.02; d = 0.39). Musicians with high MPA displayed FER deficits that were independent of general anxiety levels and possibly of general cognitive capacity. These deficits may favor the maintenance and exacerbation of experiences of anxiety during public performance, since cues of approval, satisfaction, and encouragement are not adequately recognized.

Selective Impairment of Basic Emotion Recognition in People with Autism: Discrimination Thresholds for Recognition of Facial Expressions of Varying Intensities.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by early onset qualitative impairments in reciprocal social development. However, whether individuals with ASD exhibit impaired recognition of facial expressions corresponding to basic emotions is debatable. To investigate subtle deficits in facial emotion recognition, we asked 14 children diagnosed with high-functioning autism (HFA)/AS and 17 typically developing peers to complete a new highly sensitive test of facial emotion recognition. The test stimuli comprised faces expressing increasing degrees of emotional intensity that slowly changed from a neutral to a full-intensity happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, disgust, or fear expression. We assessed individual differences in the intensity of stimuli required to make accurate judgments about emotional expressions. We found that, different emotions had different identification thresholds and the two groups were generally similar in terms of the sequence of discrimination threshold of six basic expressions. It was easier for individuals in both groups to identify emotions that were relatively fully expressed (e.g., intensity > 50%). Compared with control participants, children with ASD generally required stimuli with significantly greater intensity for the correct identification of anger, disgust, and fear expressions. These results suggest that individuals with ASD do not have a general but rather a selective impairment in basic emotion recognition.

Specific Patterns of Emotion Recognition from Faces in Children with ASD: Results of a Cross-Modal Matching Paradigm.

Children with ASD show emotion recognition difficulties, as part of their social communication deficits. We examined facial emotion recognition (FER) in intellectually disabled children with ASD and in younger typically developing (TD) controls, matched on mental age. Our emotion-matching paradigm employed three different modalities: facial, vocal and verbal. Results confirmed overall FER deficits in ASD. Compared to the TD group, children with ASD had the poorest performance in recognizing surprise and anger in comparison to happiness and sadness, and struggled with face-face matching, compared to voice-face and word-face combinations. Performance in the voice-face cross-modal recognition task was related to adaptive communication. These findings highlight the specific face processing deficit, and the relative merit of cross-modal integration in children with ASD.

Reaction time, processing speed and sustained attention in schizophrenia: Impact on social functioning

IntroductionPrevious studies have linked processing speed with social cognition and functioning of patients with schizophrenia. A discriminant analysis is needed to determine the different components of this neuropsychological construct. This paper analyzes the impact of processing speed, reaction time and sustained attention on social functioning. Material and methods98 outpatients between 18 and 65 with DSM-5 diagnosis of schizophrenia, with a period of 3 months of clinical stability, were recruited. Sociodemographic and clinical data were collected, and the following variables were measured: processing speed (Trail Making Test [TMT], symbol coding [BACS], verbal fluency), simple and elective reaction time, sustained attention, recognition of facial emotions and global functioning. ResultsProcessing speed (measured only through the BACS), sustained attention (CPT) and elective reaction time (but not simple) were associated with functioning. Recognizing facial emotions (FEIT) correlated significantly with scores on measures of processing speed (BACS, Animals, TMT), sustained attention (CPT) and reaction time. The linear regression model showed a significant relationship between functioning, emotion recognition (p=.015) and processing speed (p=.029). ConclusionsA deficit in processing speed and facial emotion recognition are associated with worse global functioning in patients with schizophrenia.

Facial emotion recognition deficits in children with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a behavioral and neurophysiological approach.

The current study examined the facial emotion recognition ability with a simultaneous assessment of behavioral and neurophysiological data in children with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) aged 7-17 years using a facial emotion matching task and event-related potential measurements (event-related potential components N170 and N250 at T5 and T6) in an emotional continuous performance task. Group differences and interaction effects of children's performance (both behavioral and neurophysiological) were evaluated between children with ADHD and children without ADHD as well as between younger and older children. No deficit in facial emotion recognition was found for children with ADHD compared with children without ADHD even with neurophysiological parameters. However, in terms of developmental differences, the younger children differentiated in their behavioral and neurophysiological performance from the older children. No interaction was detected between the experimental groups and the age groups, indicating that developmental progression in terms of emotional processes did not differ between children with and without ADHD. This study indicates that the facial emotion recognition is above all an age-dependent function with later processing of facial emotion expressions in younger compared with older children and suggests that a facial emotion recognition deficit is secondary in children with ADHD and might occur only with specific emotions or ADHD subtypes, but not in the whole ADHD population.

Recognition of emotional facial expressions in adolescents with anorexia nervosa and adolescents with major depression

Anorexia nervosa (AN) has been suggested to be associated with abnormalities in facial emotion recognition. Most prior studies on facial emotion recognition in AN have investigated adult samples, despite the onset of AN being particularly often during adolescence. In addition, few studies have examined whether impairments in facial emotion recognition are specific to AN or might be explained by frequent comorbid conditions that are also associated with deficits in emotion recognition, such as depression. The present study addressed these gaps by investigating recognition of emotional facial expressions in adolescent girls with AN (n = 26) compared to girls with major depression (MD; n = 26) and healthy girls (HC; n = 37). Participants completed one task requiring identification of emotions (happy, sad, afraid, angry, neutral) in faces and two control tasks. Neither of the clinical groups showed impairments. The AN group was more accurate than the HC group in recognising afraid facial expressions and more accurate than the MD group in recognising happy, sad, and afraid expressions. Misclassification analyses identified subtle group differences in the types of errors made. The results suggest that the deficits in facial emotion recognition found in adult AN samples are not present in adolescent patients.

Reaction time, processing speed and sustained attention in schizophrenia: impact on social functioning.

Previous studies have linked processing speed with social cognition and functioning of patients with schizophrenia. A discriminant analysis is needed to determine the different components of this neuropsychological construct. This paper analyzes the impact of processing speed, reaction time and sustained attention on social functioning. 98 outpatients between 18 and 65 with DSM-5 diagnosis of schizophrenia, with a period of 3 months of clinical stability, were recruited. Sociodemographic and clinical data were collected, and the following variables were measured: processing speed (Trail Making Test [TMT], symbol coding [BACS], verbal fluency), simple and elective reaction time, sustained attention, recognition of facial emotions and global functioning. Processing speed (measured only through the BACS), sustained attention (CPT) and elective reaction time (but not simple) were associated with functioning. Recognizing facial emotions (FEIT) correlated significantly with scores on measures of processing speed (BACS, Animals, TMT), sustained attention (CPT) and reaction time. The linear regression model showed a significant relationship between functioning, emotion recognition (P=.015) and processing speed (P=.029). A deficit in processing speed and facial emotion recognition are associated with worse global functioning in patients with schizophrenia.

Neural Correlates of Explicit Versus Implicit Facial Emotion Processing in ASD.

The underlying neural mechanisms of implicit and explicit facial emotion recognition (FER) were studied in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to matched typically developing controls (TDC). EEG was obtained from N = 21 ASD and N = 16 TDC. Task performance, visual (P100, N170) and cognitive (late positive potential) event-related-potentials, as well as coherence were compared across groups. TDC showed a task-dependent increase and a stronger lateralization of P100 amplitude during the explicit task and task-dependent modulation of intra-hemispheric coherence in the beta band. In contrast, the ASD group showed no task dependent modulation. Results indicate disruptions in early visual processing and top-down attentional processes as contributing factors to FER deficits in ASD.

Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy diminishes functional connectivity during emotion perception

ObjectivesUnilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) has been associated with impaired recognition of emotional facial expressions. Correspondingly, imaging studies showed decreased activity of the amygdala and cortical face processing regions in response to emotional faces. However, functional connectivity among regions involved in emotion perception has not been studied so far. MethodsTo address this, we examined intrinsic functional connectivity (FC) modulated by the perception of dynamic fearful faces among the amygdala and limbic, frontal, temporal and brainstem regions. Regions of interest were identified in an activation analysis by presenting a block-design with dynamic fearful faces and dynamic landscapes to 15 healthy individuals. This led to 10 predominately right-hemispheric regions. Functional connectivity between these regions during the perception of fearful faces was examined in drug-refractory patients with left- (n=16) or right-sided (n=17) MTLE, epilepsy patients with extratemporal seizure onset (n=15) and a second group of 15 healthy controls. ResultsHealthy controls showed a widespread functional network modulated by the perception of fearful faces that encompassed bilateral amygdalae, limbic, cortical, subcortical and brainstem regions. In patients with left MTLE, a downsized network of frontal and temporal regions centered on the right amygdala was present. Patients with right MTLE showed almost no significant functional connectivity. A maintained network in the epilepsy control group indicates that findings in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy could not be explained by clinical factors such as seizures and antiepileptic medication. ConclusionFunctional networks underlying facial emotion perception are considerably changed in left and right MTLE. Alterations are present for both hemispheres in either MTLE group, but are more pronounced in right MTLE. Disruption of the functional network architecture possibly contributes to deficits in facial emotion recognition frequently reported in MTLE.

Facial emotion recognition, face scan paths, and face perception in children with neurofibromatosis type 1.

This study aimed to investigate face scan paths and face perception abilities in children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) and how these might relate to emotion recognition abilities in this population. The authors investigated facial emotion recognition, face scan paths, and face perception in 29 children with NF1 compared to 29 chronological age-matched typically developing controls. Correlations between facial emotion recognition, face scan paths, and face perception in children with NF1 were examined. Children with NF1 displayed significantly poorer recognition of fearful expressions compared to controls, as well as a nonsignificant trend toward poorer recognition of anger. Although there was no significant difference between groups in time spent viewing individual core facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, and nonfeature regions), children with NF1 spent significantly less time than controls viewing the face as a whole. Children with NF1 also displayed significantly poorer face perception abilities than typically developing controls. Facial emotion recognition deficits were not significantly associated with aberrant face scan paths or face perception abilities in the NF1 group. These results suggest that impairments in the perception, identification, and interpretation of information from faces are important aspects of the social-cognitive phenotype of NF1. (PsycINFO Database Record

Facial emotion recognition in patients with focal and diffuse axonal injury

ABSTRACTObjective: Facial emotion recognition impairment has been well documented in patients with traumatic brain injury. Studies exploring the neural substrates involved in such deficits have implicated specific grey matter structures (e.g. orbitofrontal regions), as well as diffuse white matter damage. Our study aims to clarify whether different types of injuries (i.e. focal vs. diffuse) will lead to different types of impairments on facial emotion recognition tasks, as no study has directly compared these patients.Methods: The present study examined performance and response patterns on a facial emotion recognition task in 14 participants with diffuse axonal injury (DAI), 14 with focal injury (FI) and 22 healthy controls.Results: We found that, overall, participants with FI and DAI performed more poorly than controls on the facial emotion recognition task. Further, we observed comparable emotion recognition performance in participants with FI and DAI, despite differences in the nature and distribution of their lesions. However, the rating response pattern between the patient groups was different.Conclusion: This is the first study to show that pure DAI, without gross focal lesions, can independently lead to facial emotion recognition deficits and that rating patterns differ depending on the type and location of trauma.

Development of a tool to assess Facial Emotion Recognition deficits in mothers with schizophrenia-A preliminary report.

There is dearth of studies which have assessed Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits (FERD) in parents and its impact on parenting. To assess FERD in mothers with severe mental illness, a modification of TRENDS (A Tool for Recognition of Emotions in Neuropsychiatric DisorderS) using images of children was developed. Two children emoted six basic emotions,namely happy, sad, fear, anger, surprise and disgust at two different intensities along with neutral facial expressions. These images were then validated by 20 subjects which included 15 healthy controls and 5 qualified psychiatrists.The tool was found to have good inter-rater agreement and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha+0.712).

Shakespeare and Autism: A Pilot Study Examining the Treatment Effects and Predictors of Treatment Response of the Hunter Heartbeat Method

This pilot study was designed to explore the potential impact of participation in the Hunter Heartbeat Method, a drama-based social skills intervention, on the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A sample of 10 children with ASD participated in this study. Children were assessed at three time-points: before the start of the intervention (T1), after 14 weeks of participation (T2) and after 42 weeks of participation (T3). Findings from this pilot study indicated that the Hunter Heartbeat Method (HHM) is an intervention that shows promise in impacting social, communication and facial emotion recognition deficits associated with ASD. We also identified the individual characteristics of the participants who were responders and non-responders to the HHM intervention. The results of these findings are discussed.

Facial emotion recognition, theory of mind and the role of facial mimicry in depression

BackgroundThis study examined whether acutely (aMDD) and remitted depressed patients (rMDD) show deficits in the two aspects of social cognition – facial emotion recognition (FER) and reasoning – when using ecologically valid material. Furthermore, we examined whether reduced facial mimicry mediates the association between depressive symptoms and FER, and whether FER deficits and reasoning deficits are associated. MethodIn 42 aMDD, 43 rMDD, and 39 healthy controls (HC) FER was assessed using stimuli from the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set, reasoning by the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition. Furthermore, the activity of Zygomaticus Major and Corrugator supercilii were recorded. ResultsaMDD recognized happy faces less accurately, were less confident recognizing happiness and anger and found it more difficult to recognize happiness, anger and fear than HC. rMDD were less confident recognizing anger and found it more difficult to recognize happiness, anger and fear than HC. Reduced mimicry did not explain FER deficits. aMDD but not rMDD showed impaired reasoning. LimitationsThe stimulus material was comparably easy to decode. Therefore, it is possible that the FER deficits of aMDD and rMDD patients are more pronounced than demonstrated in this study. ConclusionsaMDD show deficits in FER and reasoning, whereas rMDD only show mild impairments in the recognition of emotional expressions. There must be other processes – besides mimicry – that serve the accurate recognition of emotional facial expressions.

Altered Kinematics of Facial Emotion Expression and Emotion Recognition Deficits Are Unrelated in Parkinson's Disease.

Altered emotional processing, including reduced emotion facial expression and defective emotion recognition, has been reported in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, few studies have objectively investigated facial expression abnormalities in PD using neurophysiological techniques. It is not known whether altered facial expression and recognition in PD are related. To investigate possible deficits in facial emotion expression and emotion recognition and their relationship, if any, in patients with PD. Eighteen patients with PD and 16 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Facial expressions of emotion were recorded using a 3D optoelectronic system and analyzed using the facial action coding system. Possible deficits in emotion recognition were assessed using the Ekman test. Participants were assessed in one experimental session. Possible relationship between the kinematic variables of facial emotion expression, the Ekman test scores, and clinical and demographic data in patients were evaluated using the Spearman's test and multiple regression analysis. The facial expression of all six basic emotions had slower velocity and lower amplitude in patients in comparison to healthy controls (all Ps < 0.05). Patients also yielded worse Ekman global score and disgust, sadness, and fear sub-scores than healthy controls (all Ps < 0.001). Altered facial expression kinematics and emotion recognition deficits were unrelated in patients (all Ps > 0.05). Finally, no relationship emerged between kinematic variables of facial emotion expression, the Ekman test scores, and clinical and demographic data in patients (all Ps > 0.05). The results in this study provide further evidence of altered emotional processing in PD. The lack of any correlation between altered facial emotion expression kinematics and emotion recognition deficits in patients suggests that these abnormalities are mediated by separate pathophysiological mechanisms.

Facial emotion recognition and alexithymia in Chinese male patients with deficit schizophrenia.

Deficit schizophrenia (DS) has been proposed as a pathophysiologically distinct schizophrenia subtype. This study investigated facial emotion recognition deficits and alexithymia in DS and non-deficit schizophrenia patients (NDS) and their relationships with other clinical variables. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), and Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) were employed to evaluate the psychiatric symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Facial emotion recognition deficits and Alexithymia were assessed in DS, NDS, and control groups by The Chinese Facial Emotion Test (CFET) and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20). Compared with control group, both DS and NDS patients exhibited more severe facial emotion recognition impairments, with the exception of "happy faces" in NDS patients, as well as higher alexithymia scores. In DS patients, correct frequency for fear recognition and total CFET score were negatively correlated with TAS-20 Factor 3 subscore for "externally oriented thinking". Total TAS-20 score was positively correlated with BPRS negative symptom and SANS score in DS patients. In contrast, there were no correlations between TAS-20 scores/subscores and psychiatric symptoms in NDS patients. These findings indicated distinct facial emotion recognition impairments in DS and NDS patients. Alexithymia might be specifically related to the negative symptom in DS patients, suggesting DS as a unique schizophrenic subtype.

Social cognition in multiple sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

To quantify the magnitude of deficits in theory of mind (ToM) and facial emotion recognition among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) relative to healthy controls. An electronic database search of Ovid MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase was conducted from inception to April 1, 2016. Eligible studies were original research articles published in peer-reviewed journals that examined ToM or facial emotion recognition among patients with a diagnosis of MS and a healthy control comparison group. Data were independently extracted by 2 authors. Effect sizes were calculated using Hedges g. Twenty-one eligible studies were identified assessing ToM (12 studies) and/or facial emotion recognition (13 studies) among 722 patients with MS and 635 controls. Deficits in both ToM (g = -0.71, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.88 to -0.55, p < 0.001) and facial emotion recognition (g = -0.64, 95% CI -0.81 to -0.47, p < 0.001) were identified among patients with MS relative to healthy controls. The largest deficits were observed for visual ToM tasks and for the recognition of negative facial emotional expressions. Older age predicted larger emotion recognition deficits. Other cognitive domains were inconsistently associated with social cognitive performance. Social cognitive deficits are an overlooked but potentially important aspect of cognitive impairment in MS with potential prognostic significance for social functioning and quality of life. Further research is required to clarify the longitudinal course of social cognitive dysfunction, its association with MS disease characteristics and neurocognitive impairment, and the MS-specific neurologic damage underlying these deficits.

Detecting facial emotion recognition deficits in schizophrenia using dynamic stimuli of varying intensities

BackgroundDeficits in facial emotion recognition have been associated with functional impairments in patients with Schizophrenia (SZ). Whilst a strong ecological argument has been made for the use of both dynamic facial expressions and varied emotion intensities in research, SZ emotion recognition studies to date have primarily used static stimuli of a singular, 100%, intensity of emotion. To address this issue, the present study aimed to investigate accuracy of emotion recognition amongst patients with SZ and healthy subjects using dynamic facial emotion stimuli of varying intensities. To this end an emotion recognition task (ERT) designed by Montagne (2007) was adapted and employed. Methods47 patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of SZ and 51 healthy participants were assessed for emotion recognition. Results of the ERT were tested for correlation with performance in areas of cognitive ability typically found to be impaired in psychosis, including IQ, memory, attention and social cognition. ResultsPatients were found to perform less well than healthy participants at recognising each of the 6 emotions analysed. Surprisingly, however, groups did not differ in terms of impact of emotion intensity on recognition accuracy; for both groups higher intensity levels predicted greater accuracy, but no significant interaction between diagnosis and emotional intensity was found for any of the 6 emotions. Accuracy of emotion recognition was, however, more strongly correlated with cognition in the patient cohort. DiscussionWhilst this study demonstrates the feasibility of using ecologically valid dynamic stimuli in the study of emotion recognition accuracy, varying the intensity of the emotion displayed was not demonstrated to impact patients and healthy participants differentially, and thus may not be a necessary variable to include in emotion recognition research.

Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths.

Individuals with psychopathy present deficits in the recognition of facial emotional expressions. However, the nature and extent of these alterations are not fully understood. Furthermore, available data on the functional neural correlates of emotional face recognition deficits in adult psychopaths have provided mixed results. In this context, emotional face morphing tasks may be suitable for clarifying mild and emotion-specific impairments in psychopaths. Likewise, studies exploring corresponding anatomical correlates may be useful for disentangling available neurofunctional evidence based on the alleged neurodevelopmental roots of psychopathic traits. We used Voxel-Based Morphometry and a morphed emotional face expression recognition task to evaluate the relationship between regional gray matter (GM) volumes and facial emotion recognition deficits in male psychopaths. In comparison to male healthy controls, psychopaths showed deficits in the recognition of sad, happy and fear emotional expressions. In subsequent brain imaging analyses psychopaths with better recognition of facial emotional expressions showed higher volume in the prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal, inferior frontal and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices), somatosensory cortex, anterior insula, cingulate cortex and the posterior lobe of the cerebellum. Amygdala and temporal lobe volumes contributed to better emotional face recognition in controls only. These findings provide evidence suggesting that variability in brain morphometry plays a role in accounting for psychopaths’ impaired ability to recognize emotional face expressions, and may have implications for comprehensively characterizing the empathy and social cognition dysfunctions typically observed in this population of subjects.

Facing the Problem: Impaired Emotion Recognition During Multimodal Social Information Processing in Borderline Personality Disorder

Previous research has revealed alterations and deficits in facial emotion recognition in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). During interpersonal communication in daily life, social signals such as speech content, variation in prosody, and facial expression need to be considered simultaneously. We hypothesized that deficits in higher level integration of social stimuli contribute to difficulties in emotion recognition in BPD, and heightened arousal might explain this effect. Thirty-one patients with BPD and thirty-one healthy controls were asked to identify emotions in short video clips, which were designed to represent different combinations of the three communication channels: facial expression, speech content, and prosody. Skin conductance was recorded as a measure of sympathetic arousal, while controlling for state dissociation. Patients with BPD showed lower mean accuracy scores than healthy control subjects in all conditions comprising emotional facial expressions. This was true for the condition with facial expression only, and for the combination of all three communication channels. Electrodermal responses were enhanced in BPD only in response to auditory stimuli. In line with the major body of facial emotion recognition studies, we conclude that deficits in the interpretation of facial expressions lead to the difficulties observed in multimodal emotion processing in BPD.