Dataset Information

"I cannot see your fear!" Altered recognition of fearful facial expressions in anorexia nervosa.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The evidence about facial emotion recognition in anorexia nervosa as the role of alexithymic traits on this emotional ability is conflicting and heterogeneous.

Objective

We assessed the capability of recognizing facial expressions of two primary emotions, fear, and anger, in the context of anorexia nervosa.

Methods

Women affected by anorexia nervosa were compared with healthy weight women in a well-established implicit facial emotion recognition task. Both reaction time and level of accuracy were computed. Moreover, the individual levels of alexithymia were assessed through a standard self-report questionnaire.

Results

Participants with anorexia nervosa reported a significantly lower performance in terms of reaction time and accuracy when the emotion of fear-but not anger-was the target. Notably, such an alteration was linked to the levels of alexithymia reported in the self-report questionnaire.

Conclusion

In anorexia nervosa, difficulties in processing facial fearful (but not angry) expressions may be observed as linked to higher expressions of alexithymic traits. We suggested future research in which emotional processing will be investigated taking into account the role of the bodily dimensions of emotional awareness.

SUBMITTER: Vaioli G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10732310 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

"I cannot see your fear!" Altered recognition of fearful facial expressions in anorexia nervosa.

Vaioli Giulia G Bastoni Ilaria I Villa Valentina V Mendolicchio Leonardo L Castelnuovo Gianluca G Mauro Alessandro A Scarpina Federica F

Frontiers in psychology 20231206

<h4>Background</h4>The evidence about facial emotion recognition in anorexia nervosa as the role of alexithymic traits on this emotional ability is conflicting and heterogeneous.<h4>Objective</h4>We assessed the capability of recognizing facial expressions of two primary emotions, fear, and anger, in the context of anorexia nervosa.<h4>Methods</h4>Women affected by anorexia nervosa were compared with healthy weight women in a well-established implicit facial emotion recognition task. Both reacti ...[more]

PMID: 38125860

Similar Datasets

Project description:Facial mimicry is commonly defined as the tendency to imitate-at a sub-threshold level-facial expressions of other individuals. Numerous studies support a role of facial mimicry in recognizing others' emotions. However, the underlying functional mechanism is unclear. A prominent hypothesis considers facial mimicry as based on an action-perception loop, leading to the prediction that facial mimicry should be observed only when processing others' facial expressions. Nevertheless, previous studies have also detected facial mimicry during observation of emotional bodily expressions. An emergent alternative hypothesis is that facial mimicry overtly reflects the simulation of an "emotion", rather than the reproduction of a specific observed motor pattern. In the present study, we tested whether blocking mimicry ("Bite") on the lower face disrupted recognition of happy expressions conveyed by either facial or body expressions. In Experiment 1, we tested participants' ability to identify happy, fearful and neutral expressions in the Bite condition and in two control conditions. In Experiment 2, to ensure that such a manipulation selectively affects emotion recognition, we tested participants' ability to recognize emotional expressions, as well as the actors' gender, under the Bite condition and a control condition. Finally, we investigated the relationship between dispositional empathy and emotion recognition under the condition of blocked mimicry. Our findings demonstrated that blocking mimicry on the lower face hindered recognition of happy facial and body expressions, while the recognition of neutral and fearful expressions was not affected by the mimicry manipulation. The mimicry manipulation did not affect the gender discrimination task. Furthermore, the impairment of happy expression recognition correlated with empathic traits. These results support the role of facial mimicry in emotion recognition and suggest that facial mimicry reflects a global sensorimotor simulation of others' emotions rather than a muscle-specific reproduction of an observed motor expression.

Dataset Information

"I cannot see your fear!" Altered recognition of fearful facial expressions in anorexia nervosa.

Background

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

"I cannot see your fear!" Altered recognition of fearful facial expressions in anorexia nervosa.

Similar Datasets

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