Impaired recognition of happy facial expressions in bipolar disorder

The ability to accurately judge facial expressions is important in social interactions. Individuals with bipolar disorder have been found to be impaired in emotion recognition; however, the specifics of the impairment are unclear. This study investigated whether facial emotion recognition difficulti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta neuropsychiatrica 2014-08, Vol.26 (4), p.253-259
Main Authors: Lawlor-Savage, Linette, Sponheim, Scott R., Goghari, Vina M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Adult
Age
Analysis of covariance
Anger
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar Disorder - physiopathology
Bipolar Disorder - psychology
Cognitive ability
Emotions
Facial Expression
Female
Gender
Happiness
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Processing speed
Psychosis
Rapid Communication
Recognition (Psychology)
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Summary:The ability to accurately judge facial expressions is important in social interactions. Individuals with bipolar disorder have been found to be impaired in emotion recognition; however, the specifics of the impairment are unclear. This study investigated whether facial emotion recognition difficulties in bipolar disorder reflect general cognitive, or emotion-specific, impairments. Impairment in the recognition of particular emotions and the role of processing speed in facial emotion recognition were also investigated. Clinically stable bipolar patients (n = 17) and healthy controls (n = 50) judged five facial expressions in two presentation types, time-limited and self-paced. An age recognition condition was used as an experimental control. Bipolar patients' overall facial recognition ability was unimpaired. However, patients' specific ability to judge happy expressions under time constraints was impaired. Findings suggest a deficit in happy emotion recognition impacted by processing speed. Given the limited sample size, further investigation with a larger patient sample is warranted.
ISSN:0924-2708
1601-5215
DOI:10.1017/neu.2014.6