Ambiguous emotion recognition in temporal lobe epilepsy: the role of expression intensity.

The lateralization of emotion processing is currently debated and may be further explored by examining facial expression recognition (FER) impairments in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Furthermore, there is also debate in the literature whether FER deficits in individuals with TLE are more pronounced in the right than in the left hemisphere. Individuals with TLE were tested with an FER task designed to be more sensitive than those classically used to shed light on this issue.

Sex differences in the perception of affective facial expressions: do men really lack emotional sensitivity?

There is evidence that men and women display differences in both cognitive and affective functions. Recent studies have examined the processing of emotions in males and females. However, the findings are inconclusive, possibly the result of methodological differences.

Bipolar patients show mood-congruent biases in sensitivity to facial expressions of emotion when exhibiting depressed symptoms, but not when exhibiting manic symptoms.

Introduction: A number of studies have reported mood-congruent biases in processing facial expressions of emotion in depression and mania. Most of them have failed to establish that mood reliably affects relevant more than irrelevant expressions, or that the effect is specifically mood-related rather than due to resource or task difficulty artefacts. The aim was to examine, using appropriate statistical methods, whether depressed mood in bipolar patients decreases and manic mood increases sensitivity to facial expressions of happiness and vice versa for facial expressions of negative emotion.

Is everybody always my friend? Perception of approachability in Williams syndrome.

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) are well known for their friendly behaviour and tendency to approach strangers indiscriminately as if everybody were their friend. This tendency to approach strangers is mirrored in their ratings of unfamiliar face stimuli. Here we examined their perception of unfamiliar expressive faces and found that individuals with WS do not always see faces as being highly approachable.

Perception of facial expressions of emotion in bipolar disorder.

Objectives: Some studies have reported deficits in the perception of facial expressions among depressed individuals compared with healthy controls, while others have reported negative biases in expression perception. We examined whether altered perception of emotion reflects an underlying trait-like effect in affective disorder by examining facial expression perception in euthymic bipolar patients.

Methods: Sensitivity to six different facial expressions, as well as accuracy of emotion recognition, was examined among 17 euthymic bipolar patients and 17 healthy controls using an interactive computer program.

Facial expression recognition in Williams syndrome.

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) excel in face recognition and show both a remarkable concern for social stimuli and a linguistic capacity for, in particular, emotionally referenced language. The animated full facial expression comprehension test (AFFECT), a new test of emotional expression perception, was used to compare participants with WS with both chronological and mental age-matched controls. It was found that expression recognition in WS was worse than that of chronologically age-matched controls but indistinguishable from that of mental age controls.

Facial affect perception in alcoholics.

Satisfactory interpersonal interaction involves understanding others' facial expressions. Alcoholic individuals often have severe interpersonal difficulties that may relate to poor and distorted perception of facial expressions. The importance of attention direction has been highlighted by the finding, in recent primate studies, of neurons responsible for the detection of attention direction.