Dysfunctions of Facial Emotion Recognition in Adult Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Influence on interpersonal difficulties

Abstract

Emotional facial expression (EFE) accurate recognition is needed to ensure good interpersonal communication and relationship. Impaired recognition of emotional facial expressions has been described in many neuropsychiatric disorders. Neuronal circuits dysfunctions and/or inappropriate learning processes could explain these recognition difficulties. EFE decoding disturbances in adult neuropsychiatric disorders are reviewed. For some of these disorders, a correlation has been evidenced between poor recognition of EFE and interpersonal difficulties. Treatment of EFE dysfunctions seems possible but it is not yet known if such a treatment could improve the interpersonal life of patients with neuropsychiatric disorders.

Protocol for a between-group experimental study examining cultural differences in emotion processing between Malay and Caucasian adults with and without major depressive disorder

“…Recently, several different researchers have developed similar kinds of emotion processing training programmes and these have been found to generate positive outcomes when applied in depressed young adults, schoolchildren, nurses and violent offenders. [57][58][59][60][61] The capability to recognise emotions is important for successful social interaction and it facilitates social adjustment which inadvertently improves the quality of life. 58 Previous research has shown that those with MDD have difficulties with attention and information processing when an eye tracking device was used.…”