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Face Processing in Chronic Alcoholism: A Specific Deficit for Emotional Features
Author(s) -
Maurage P.,
Campanella S.,
Philippot P.,
Martin S.,
De Timary P.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2007.00611.x
Subject(s) - psychology , facial expression , subtraction , audiology , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , communication , arithmetic , mathematics
Background: It is well established that chronic alcoholism is associated with a deficit in the decoding of emotional facial expression (EFE). Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether this deficit is specifically for emotions or due to a more general impairment in visual or facial processing. This study was designed to clarify this issue using multiple control tasks and the subtraction method. Methods: Eighteen patients suffering from chronic alcoholism and 18 matched healthy control subjects were asked to perform several tasks evaluating (1) Basic visuo‐spatial and facial identity processing; (2) Simple reaction times; (3) Complex facial features identification (namely age, emotion, gender, and race). Accuracy and reaction times were recorded. Results: Alcoholic patients had a preserved performance for visuo‐spatial and facial identity processing, but their performance was impaired for visuo‐motor abilities and for the detection of complex facial aspects. More importantly, the subtraction method showed that alcoholism is associated with a specific EFE decoding deficit, still present when visuo‐motor slowing down is controlled for. Conclusion: These results offer a post hoc confirmation of earlier data showing an EFE decoding deficit in alcoholism by strongly suggesting a specificity of this deficit for emotions. This may have implications for clinical situations, where emotional impairments are frequently observed among alcoholic subjects.