Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T00:00:57.522Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Impaired Recognition of Negative Facial Emotions in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2019

Sally A. Grace*
Affiliation:
Centre for Mental Health, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia
Wei Lin Toh
Affiliation:
Centre for Mental Health, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia
Ben Buchanan
Affiliation:
School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
David J. Castle
Affiliation:
Psychiatry, St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Susan L. Rossell
Affiliation:
Centre for Mental Health, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to: Sally A. Grace, Centre for Mental Health, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Objectives: Patients with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) have difficulty in recognising facial emotions, and there is evidence to suggest that there is a specific deficit in identifying negative facial emotions, such as sadness and anger. Methods: This study investigated facial emotion recognition in 19 individuals with BDD compared with 21 healthy control participants who completed a facial emotion recognition task, in which they were asked to identify emotional expressions portrayed in neutral, happy, sad, fearful, or angry faces. Results: Compared to the healthy control participants, the BDD patients were generally less accurate in identifying all facial emotions but showed specific deficits for negative emotions. The BDD group made significantly more errors when identifying neutral, angry, and sad faces than healthy controls; and were significantly slower at identifying neutral, angry, and happy faces. Conclusions: These findings add to previous face-processing literature in BDD, suggesting deficits in identifying negative facial emotions. There are treatment implications as future interventions would do well to target such deficits.

Type
Brief Communication
Copyright
Copyright © INS. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2019. 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Dsm-iv-tr. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
Buhlmann, U., McNally, R.J., Etcoff, N.L., Tuschen-Caffier, B., & Wilhelm, S. (2004). Emotion recognition deficits in body dysmorphic disorder. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 38(2), 201206. doi: 10.1016/s0022-3956(03)00107-9 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buhlmann, U., Etcoff, N.L., & Wilhelm, S. (2006). Emotion recognition bias for contempt and anger in body dysmorphic disorder. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 40(2), 105111. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2005.03.006 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buhlmann, U., Gleiss, M.J., Rupf, L., Zschenderlein, K., & Kathmann, N. (2011). Modifying emotion recognition deficits in body dysmorphic disorder: An experimental investigation. Depression and Anxiety, 28(10), 924931. doi: 10.1002/da.20887 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castle, D.J., Rossell, S., & Kyrios, M. (2006). Body dysmorphic disorder. The Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 29(2), 521538. doi: 10.1016/j.psc.2006.02.001 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ekman, P. & Friesen, W.V. (1976). Measuring facial movement. Environmental Psychology and Nonverbal Behavior, 1(1), 5675. doi: 10.1007/bf01115465 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feusner, J.D., Bystritsky, A., Hellemann, G., & Bookheimer, S. (2010a). Impaired identity recognition of faces with emotional expressions in body dysmorphic disorder. Psychiatry Research, 179(3), 318323. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2009.01.016 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feusner, J.D., Moller, H., Altstein, L., Sugar, C., Bookheimer, S., Yoon, J., & Hembacher, E. (2010b). Inverted face processing in body dysmorphic disorder. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 44(15), 10881094. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.03.015 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodman, W.K., Price, L.H., Rasmussen, S.A., Mazure, C., Fleischmann, R.L., Hill, C.L., Heninger, G.R., & Charney, D.S. (1989). The Yale-Brown obsessive compulsive scale: I. Development, use, and reliability. Archives of General Psychiatry, 46(11), 10061011. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1989.01810110048007 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gunstad, J. & Phillips, K.A. (2003). Axis I comorbidity in body dysmorphic disorder. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 44(4), 270276. doi: 10.1016/S0010-440X(03)00088-9 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jefferies, K., Laws, K.R., & Fineberg, N.A. (2012). Superior face recognition in body dysmorphic disorder. Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 1(3), 175179. doi: 10.1016/j.jocrd.2012.03.002 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labuschagne, I., Castle, D.J., Dunai, J., Kyrios, M., & Rossell, S.L. (2010). An examination of delusional thinking and cognitive styles in body dysmorphic disorder. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 44(8), 706712. doi: 10.3109/00048671003671007 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marazziti, D., Giannotti, D., Catena, M., Carlini, M., Dell’Osso, B., Presta, S., Pfanner, C., Mungai, F., & Dell’Osso, L. (2006). Insight in body dysmorphic disorder with and without comorbid obsessive-compulsive disorder. CNS Spectrums, 11(7), 494498. doi: 10.1017/S109285290001350x CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mattick, R.P. & Clarke, J.C. (1998). Development and validation of measures of social phobia scrutiny fear and social interaction anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36(4), 455470. doi: 10.1016/S0005-7967(97)10031-6 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Phillips, K.A., McElroy, S.L., Keck, P.E. Jr., Pope, H.G. Jr., & Hudson, J.I. (1993). Body dysmorphic disorder: 30 cases of imagined ugliness. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 150(2), 302308. doi: 10.1176/ajp.150.2.302 Google ScholarPubMed
Phillips, K.A. (1994). Body Dysmorphic Disorder Diagnostic Module. Belmont, MA: McLean Hospital.Google Scholar
Phillips, K.A., Hollander, E., Rasmussen, S.A., Aronowitz, B.R., DeCaria, C., & Goodman, W.K. (1997). A severity rating scale for body dysmorphic disorder: Development, reliability, and validity of a modified version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 33(1), 1722.Google ScholarPubMed
Sheehan, D.V., Lecrubier, Y., Sheehan, K.H., Amorim, P., Janavs, J., Weiller, E., Hergueta, T., Baker, R. & Dunbar, G.C. (1998). The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.): The development and validation of a structured diagnostic psychiatric interview for DSM-IV and ICD-10. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 59(Suppl 20), 2233;quiz 34–57.Google ScholarPubMed
Toh, W.L., Castle, D.J., & Rossell, S.L. (2015). Facial affect recognition in body dysmorphic disorder versus obsessive-compulsive disorder: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 35, 4959. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2015.08.003 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tranter, R., Bell, D., Gutting, P., Harmer, C., Healy, D., & Anderson, I.M. (2009). The effect of serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants on face emotion processing in depressed patients. Journal of Affective Disorders, 118(1–3), 8793.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wechsler, D. (2001). Wechsler test of adult reading: WTAR. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Wells, L.J., Gillespie, S.M., & Rotshtein, P. (2016). Identification of emotional facial expressions: Effects of expression, intensity, and sex on eye gaze. PLoS One, 11(12), e0168307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zung, W.W. (1965). A self-rating depression scale. Archives of General Psychiatry, i, 6370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar