Emotion Recognition in Blended Facial Expressions in Women with Anorexia Nervosa

Marcela Marin Dapelo, Simon Surguladze, Robin Morris, Kate Tchanturia*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

38 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

People with anorexia nervosa (AN) have difficulties in the social domain, and problems in the ability to recognise emotions in people's faces may contribute to these difficulties. This study aimed to investigate emotion recognition in women with AN and healthy controls (HC), using pictures of faces portraying blended emotions at different levels of ambiguity, which resemble real-life expressions more closely than prototypical expressions used in past studies. Seventy-seven participants (35 AN; 42 HC) completed the emotion recognition task. Results indicated that participants with AN were less accurate than HC recognising expressions of disgust, when shown less ambiguously. There were no differences in the recognition of other emotions. Participants with AN also showed response bias towards anger. These findings suggest a generally preserved ability to recognise emotions in women with AN, with the exception of disgust recognition. They also support previous findings of bias towards anger in AN patients.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)34
Number of pages42
JournalEuropean eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association
Volume24
Issue number1
Early online date14 Sept 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2016

Keywords

  • Anorexia nervosa
  • Disgust
  • Eating disorders
  • Emotion recognition
  • Face

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