Aim: Decoding facial expression is important for psychological well-being. This study examined facial emotion recognition of simple/complex and pleasant/unpleasant emotions in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders (AnD).
Methods: Patients with MDD (n = 37), AnD (n = 36) and healthy controls (HC) (n = 40) participated in this study. The recognition accuracy of emotional faces was calculated.
Results: Patients with MDD had significantly lower recognition accuracy compared to HC. Patients with MDD exhibited lower recognition accuracy for simple emotions compared to patients with AnD and HC, and lower accuracy for complex emotions compared only to HC. Patients with AnD and HC showed comparable recognition accuracy for simple emotions, which were lower than that of patients with MDD. However, in recognition accuracy of complex emotions, AnD was not significantly different from either MDD or HC.
Conclusions: Patients with MDD and AnD have a distinctive difficulty with the recognition of facial expressions. The recognition of complex emotions in patients with MDD and AnD should be studied further.
Keywords: anxiety; depression; emotions; facial expression; reading facial expression.
© 2015 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2015 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.