Comparison of facial expression in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia using the Facial Action Coding System: a preliminary study

Abstract

BackgroundResearch shows that impairment in the expression and recognition of emotion exists in multiple psychiatric disorders. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the way that patients with schizophrenia and those with obsessive-compulsive disorder experience and display emotions in relation to specific emotional stimuli using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS).MethodsThirty individuals participated in the study, comprising 10 patients with schizophrenia, 10 with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and 10 healthy controls. All participants underwent clinical sessions to evaluate their symptoms and watched emotion-eliciting video clips while facial activity was videotaped. Congruent/incongruent feeling of emotions and facial expression in reaction to emotions were evaluated.ResultsPatients with schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder presented similarly incongruent emotive feelings and facial expressions (significantly worse than healthy participants). Correlations between the severity of psychopathological condition (in particular the severity of affective flattening) and impairment in recognition and expression of emotions were found.DiscussionPatients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia seem to present a similarly relevant impairment in both experiencing and displaying of emotions; this impairment may be seen as a chronic consequence of the same neurodevelopmental origin of the two diseases. Mimic expression could be seen as a behavioral indicator of affective flattening. The FACS could be used as an objective way to evaluate clinical evolution in patients.

Facial expression in patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in response to emotional stimuli: a partially shared cognitive and social deficit of the two disorders

“…The facial expression of each patient in response to the vision of the films was video recorded. These video clips, all in Italian, were watched by the three groups of subjects in the same order, according to the protocol established by Gross21 and according to the protocol of a previous study by our research team:22 video 1 = neutral; video 2 = amusement; video 3 = fear; video 4 = surprise; video 5 = anger; video 6 = sadness; video 7 = disgust; video 8 = amusement.…”

Social Cognition and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Review of Subdomains of Social Functioning

“…Despite clear indications for altered emotion experience in OCD in individual contexts, less is known about the emotional reactions of individuals with OCD in response to social emotioninducing stimuli. Several studies have investigated the experience of basic emotions in patients with OCD as indexed by their facial expressions in response to emotion-inducing video clips of social scenarios (114,117,118). Mergl et al (117) showed that patients with OCD demonstrated significantly slower initial velocity of involuntary laughing movements in response to a humorous movie clip of Mr. Bean.…”

Software‐based video analysis of functional outcomes of face transplantation

“…The software Emotient from iMotions was utilized to analyze these videos. This software uses the facial action coding system (FACS), which defines specific facial units, called action units (AU) ( Figure 1), and track their alterations from a neutral baseline during movements and expressions (Bersani, Bersani, Valeriani, & Robiony, 2012;Hamma, Kohlerb, & Gurb, 2011). Emotient is able to detect the subject's face automatically by applying the Viola Jones Cascaded Classifier algorithm (Dabhi & Pancholi, 2013), used in smartphone technology, to detect 6 facial landmarks and create a sim- of a target AU being present.…”