Altered recognition of fearful and angry facial expressions in women with fibromyalgia syndrome: an experimental case–control study

Abstract

Evidence relative to facial emotion recognition and the role played by alexithymia in fibromyalgia syndrome is rare and heterogeneous. In this work, we investigated this ability in fibromyalgia investigating the implicit behaviour in the facial emotion recognition task, focusing on fear and anger. Twenty women with fibromyalgia and twenty healthy women as controls performed a facial emotion recognition of fearful and angry expressions. Their implicit behaviour was scored in accordance with the redundant target effect. The level of alexithymic traits through a standard psychological questionnaire and its effect on behavioral performance were also assessed. Participants affected by fibromyalgia reported a lower level of accuracy in recognizing fearful and angry expressions, in comparison with the controls. Crucially, such a difference was not explained by the different levels of alexithymic traits between groups. Our results agreed with some previous evidence suggesting an altered recognition of others’ emotional facial expressions in fibromyalgia syndrome. Considering the role of emotion recognition on social cognition and psychological well-being in fibromyalgia, we underlined the crucial role of emotional difficulties in the onset and maintenance of the symptoms life-span.

“I cannot see your fear!” Altered recognition of fearful facial expressions in anorexia nervosa

“… From the previous database ( Scarpina et al, 2018 , 2021 , 2022 ), we extracted the information relative to 18 healthy individuals (age in years M = 46.44; SD = 11.26; range = 23–59; education in years M = 14.55; SD = 2.87; range = 8–18). For this group, the mean BMI was 22.26 (SD = 1.31; range = 20–24.91).…”

“…We borrowed the experimental task from previous studies investigating facial emotion recognition in clinical diseases ( Scarpina et al, 2018 , 2021 , 2022 ). In the task, we presented pictures representing male and female faces with an emotional expression (i.e., the target, thus it can be an expression of fear or anger) ( Ekman and Friesen, 1976 ) in four experimental conditions: (i) unilateral , where the target appeared unilaterally in the visual screen; (ii) bilateral , in which the target was presented bilaterally; (iii) neutral incongruent , where the target was presented unilaterally along with a face showing a neutral (non-emotional) expression; and (iv) emotional incongruent, where the target was presented along with a face showing a contrasted emotional expression.…”

“…Furthermore, an independent sample t-test was used to assess any differences between the two groups (participants with AN vs. controls) in the subscores and the total score reported on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale - 20. For the facial emotion recognition task, we followed the same rationale as previous studies ( Scarpina et al, 2018 , 2021 , 2022 ) about preprocessing data as well as data analyses. The two experimental outcomes of reaction time and level of accuracy were independently analyzed through a mixed ANOVA with the within-subjects factors of Condition (unilateral, bilateral, neutral incongruent, and emotional incongruent) and the between-subjects factor of Group (participants with AN vs. controls).…”

“…This cross-sectional experimental study aimed to explore the recognition of facial emotional expressions in AN, adopting a well-established implicit behavioral paradigm ( Scarpina et al, 2018 , 2021 , 2022 ). In this task, participants are asked to detect and recognize (i.e., they have to provide an answer when they see the target), but not to label (as done in the other experiments exploring facial emotion recognition in AN), the emotion shown by faces.…”

“…Because of the psychophysical nature of this phenomenon, the role of volition in performance has decreased. As done in previous articles ( Scarpina et al, 2018 , 2021 , 2022 ), the two primary emotions of fear and anger were tested. Crucially, some previous evidence reported individuals with AN being more accurate than healthy controls for both the emotions of anger ( Dapelo et al, 2016 ) and fear ( Sfärlea et al, 2016 ).…”