Impaired recognition of prosody and subtle emotional facial expressions in Parkinson's disease.

Accurately recognizing the emotional states of others is crucial for successful social interactions and social relationships. Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) have shown deficits in emotional recognition abilities although findings have been inconsistent. This study examined recognition of emotions from prosody and from facial emotional expressions with three levels of subtlety, in 30 individuals with PD (without dementia) and 30 control participants.