Kornreich C, Blairy S, Philippot P, Hess U, Noël X, Streel E, Le Bon O, Dan B, Pelc I, Verbanck P
Department of Psychiatry, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brugmann Hospital, Brussels, Belgium.
J Stud Alcohol. 2001 Jul;62(4):533-42. doi: 10.15288/jsa.2001.62.533.
Emotional facial expression (EFE) decoding skills play a key role in interpersonal relationships. Decoding errors have been described in several pathological conditions, including alcoholism. The aim of this study was to investigate whether EFE decoding skill deficits persist after abstention from alcohol of at least 2 months.
Alcoholic patients abstinent for at least 2 months (n = 25) were compared with 25 recently detoxified patients and with 25 normal controls matched for age, gender and educational level. Subjects were presented with 40 photographs of facial expressions portraying happiness, anger, sadness, disgust and fear. Each emotion was displayed with neutral, mild, moderate and strong emotional intensity. Each facial expression was judged successively on eight scales labeled happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, shame and contempt. For each scale, subjects rated the estimated intensity level. A complementary scale assessed the self-estimated difficulty in performing the task.
Recently detoxified alcoholics were significantly less accurate than controls, making more EFE labeling errors and overestimating the intensity of the portrayed emotions. Deficits in decoding accuracy for anger and disgust were present in mid- to long-term abstinent patients; intensity overestimation was present in the former and absent in the latter.
Deficits in decoding accuracy for anger and disgust, and to a lesser degree sadness, persist with an abstinence of 2 months and beyond. Right frontotemporal regions and cingulate could be implicated. These deficits may contribute to the social skills deficits frequently encountered in alcoholic patients.
情绪性面部表情（EFE）解码技能在人际关系中起着关键作用。在包括酒精中毒在内的几种病理状况下已发现存在解码错误。本研究的目的是调查在戒酒至少2个月后，EFE解码技能缺陷是否仍然存在。
将至少戒酒2个月的酒精中毒患者（n = 25）与25名近期戒毒患者以及25名在年龄、性别和教育水平相匹配的正常对照进行比较。向受试者展示40张描绘快乐、愤怒、悲伤、厌恶和恐惧的面部表情照片。每种情绪以中性、轻度、中度和强烈的情绪强度呈现。每张面部表情依次在标记为快乐、悲伤、恐惧、愤怒、厌恶、惊讶、羞耻和轻蔑的八个量表上进行评判。对于每个量表，受试者对估计的强度水平进行评分。一个补充量表评估了执行任务时自我估计的难度。
近期戒毒的酒精中毒患者比对照组的准确性明显更低，在EFE标签上犯更多错误，并高估所描绘情绪的强度。中长期戒酒患者存在愤怒和厌恶解码准确性的缺陷；前者存在强度高估，后者不存在。
愤怒和厌恶的解码准确性缺陷，以及程度较轻的悲伤，在戒酒2个月及更长时间后仍然存在。右侧额颞叶区域和扣带回可能与之有关。这些缺陷可能导致酒精中毒患者经常出现的社交技能缺陷。
