Depressed Men's Lower Ability to Interpret Nonverbal Cues: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

The ability to interpret nonverbal facial cues was tested with 20 depressed males prior to treatment. Each subject and matched control was asked to interpret videotaped facial cues of individuals engaged in a gambling task. Interpretive ability was significantly lower for the nontreated depressed white men than for their matched controls.

Don't Dwell on it: The Impact of Rumination on Emotional Sensitivity

“…Depression has been associated with mood congruent biases which operate at all aspects of processing (e.g. attention, reasoning, memory) including impairment in the ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion (Feinberg et al, 1986;Giannini et al, 1995;Persad & Polivy, 1993;Zuroff & Colussy, 1986). Recognition of emotional states is essential for emotion regulation of self and others and for promoting personal relatedness.…”

“…Impairment in this ability may lead to misunderstandings and problems with social functioning (Baron-Cohen, Jolliffe, Mortimore, & Robertson, 1997;Beatty et al, 1989;Hargrave, Maddock, & Stone, 2002;Singh, Ellis, Winton, Singh, Leung, & Oswald, 1998). Indeed, deficits in the recognition of facial expressions of emotion have been linked to social impairments in neurodegenerative and developmental disorders (Ekman, 1994;Ekman et al, 1987;Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002;Marquardt, Rios-Brown, & Richberg, 2001), as well as depression (Feinberg, Rifkin, Schaffer, & Walker, 1986;Giannini, Folts, Melemis, Giannini, & Loiselle, 1995;Persad & Polivy, 1993;Zuroff & Colussy, 1986).…”

“…Most individuals experience at least mild depression from time to time during their lives. Impairment and systematic biases in social judgment have been suggested to play an important role in the development and maintenance of depression (e.g., Feinberg, Rifkin, Schafer, & Walker, 1986;Giannini, Folts, Melemis, Giannini, & Loiselle, 1995;Lane & DePaulo, 1999). Both naturally occurring depressive episodes and experimentally induced sadness have been shown to influence individuals' sensitivity to nonverbal information, including facial expressions (Ambady & Gray, 2002;Cooley & Nowicki, 1989;Coyne, 1976), although no previous research has investigated sensitivity to the distinction between expressions that are and are not associated with felt affective state.…”

“…Individuals with higher levels of depression show a negative bias in judgments of facial expressions (Gur et al, 1992;Hale, 1998;Mandal & Bhattacharya, 1985) and are less accurate at recognizing emotional states from facial displays (Ambady & Gray, 2002;Feinberg et al, 1986;Giannini et al, 1995;Persad & Polivy, 1993;Zuroff & Colussy, 1986). Depressed individuals also adopt a more effortful processing strategy (Ambady & Gray, 2002;Edwards & Weary, 1998;Jacobsen, Weary, & Edwards, 1999), and have a heightened sensitivity to displays of negative behavior in others and are more attuned to displays of rejection (Coyne, 1976).…”

Recognition of Emotional Facial Expressions in Depressed Children and Adolescents

“…Actually, depressed women were less accurate in interpreting facial expressions than normal controls (Feinberg, et al, 1986;Zuroff & Colussy, 19861, and some evidence also suggested that depressed men perceive others as less friendly and so erroneously attribute hostile behavior to others (Colussy & Zuroff, 1985) and have significantly impaired abhty to interpret nonverbal facial cues (Giannini, Folts, Melemis, & Giannini, 1995).…”