Anxiety Disorders Program for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (PROTAIA), Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
J Psychiatr Res. 2012 Feb;46(2):147-51. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2011.09.023. Epub 2011 Oct 21.
The aim of the present study was to test the ability of adolescents with a current anxiety diagnosis to recognize facial affective expressions, compared to those without an anxiety disorder.
Forty cases and 27 controls were selected from a larger cross sectional community sample of adolescents, aged from 10 to 17 years old. Adolescent's facial recognition of six human emotions (sadness, anger, disgust, happy, surprise and fear) and neutral faces was assessed through a facial labeling test using Ekman's Pictures of Facial Affect (POFA).
Adolescents with anxiety disorders had a higher mean number of errors in angry faces as compared to controls: 3.1 (SD=1.13) vs. 2.5 (SD=2.5), OR=1.72 (CI95% 1.02 to 2.89; p=0.040). However, they named neutral faces more accurately than adolescents without anxiety diagnosis: 15% of cases vs. 37.1% of controls presented at least one error in neutral faces, OR=3.46 (CI95% 1.02 to 11.7; p=0.047). No differences were found considering other human emotions or on the distribution of errors in each emotional face between the groups.
Our findings support an anxiety-mediated influence on the recognition of facial expressions in adolescence. These difficulty in recognizing angry faces and more accuracy in naming neutral faces may lead to misinterpretation of social clues and can explain some aspects of the impairment in social interactions in adolescents with anxiety disorders.
本研究旨在测试当前患有焦虑症的青少年识别面部情感表达的能力，与无焦虑障碍的青少年相比。
从较大的青少年横断面社区样本中选择了 40 例病例和 27 例对照，年龄在 10 至 17 岁之间。通过使用 Ekman 的面部情感图片（POFA）的面部标记测试评估青少年对六种人类情感（悲伤、愤怒、厌恶、快乐、惊讶和恐惧）和中性面孔的识别。
与对照组相比，患有焦虑症的青少年在愤怒面孔上的平均错误数更高：3.1（SD=1.13）比 2.5（SD=2.5），OR=1.72（95%CI 1.02 至 2.89；p=0.040）。然而，他们比没有焦虑诊断的青少年更准确地命名中性面孔：15%的病例至少在中性面孔上有一个错误，而对照组为 37.1%，OR=3.46（95%CI 1.02 至 11.7；p=0.047）。在考虑其他人类情感或在两组之间每个情感面孔的错误分布时，没有发现差异。
我们的研究结果支持焦虑症对青少年面部表情识别的影响。这些在识别愤怒面孔方面的困难以及在命名中性面孔方面的更高准确性可能导致对社会线索的误解，并可以解释焦虑症青少年在社交互动方面的一些损害。
