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Monferrer M, García AS, Ricarte JJ, Montes MJ, Fernández-Caballero A, Fernández-Sotos P. Facial emotion recognition in patients with depression compared to healthy controls when using human avatars. Sci Rep 2023; 13:6007. [PMID: 37045889 PMCID: PMC10097677 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-31277-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2022] [Accepted: 03/09/2023] [Indexed: 04/14/2023] Open
Abstract
The negative, mood-congruent cognitive bias described in depression, as well as excessive rumination, have been found to interfere with emotional processing. This study focuses on the assessment of facial recognition of emotions in patients with depression through a new set of dynamic virtual faces (DVFs). The sample consisted of 54 stable patients compared to 54 healthy controls. The experiment consisted in an emotion recognition task using non-immersive virtual reality (VR) with DVFs of six basic emotions and neutral expression. Patients with depression showed a worst performance in facial affect recognition compared to healthy controls. Age of onset was negatively correlated with emotion recognition and no correlation was observed for duration of illness or number of lifetime hospitalizations. There was no correlation for the depression group between emotion recognition and degree of psychopathology, excessive rumination, degree of functioning, or quality of life. Hence, it is important to improve and validate VR tools for emotion recognition to achieve greater methodological homogeneity of studies and to be able to establish more conclusive results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marta Monferrer
- Servicio de Salud de Castilla-La Mancha, Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Albacete, Servicio de Salud Mental, 02004, Albacete, Spain
| | - Arturo S García
- Departmento de Sistemas Informáticos, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 02071, Albacete, Spain
- Neurocognition and Emotion Unit, Instituto de Investigación en Informática de Albacete, 02071, Albacete, Spain
| | - Jorge J Ricarte
- Departmento de Psicología, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 02071, Albacete, Spain
| | - María J Montes
- Servicio de Salud de Castilla-La Mancha, Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Albacete, Servicio de Salud Mental, 02004, Albacete, Spain
| | - Antonio Fernández-Caballero
- Departmento de Sistemas Informáticos, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 02071, Albacete, Spain
- Neurocognition and Emotion Unit, Instituto de Investigación en Informática de Albacete, 02071, Albacete, Spain
- CIBERSAM-ISCIII (Biomedical Research Networking Centre in Mental Health, Instituto de Salud Carlos III), 28016, Madrid, Spain
| | - Patricia Fernández-Sotos
- Servicio de Salud de Castilla-La Mancha, Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Albacete, Servicio de Salud Mental, 02004, Albacete, Spain.
- CIBERSAM-ISCIII (Biomedical Research Networking Centre in Mental Health, Instituto de Salud Carlos III), 28016, Madrid, Spain.
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