Schönenberg M, Christian S, Gaußer A-K, Mayer S V, Hautzinger M, Jusyte A
Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Psychol Med. 2014 Apr;44(5):1043-52. doi: 10.1017/S0033291713001517. Epub 2013 Jul 1.
Although impaired recognition of affective facial expressions has been conclusively linked to antisocial behavior, little is known about the modifiability of this deficit. This study investigated whether and under which circumstances the proposed perceptual insensitivity can be addressed with a brief implicit training approach.
Facial affect recognition was assessed with an animated morph task, in which the participants (44 male incarcerated violent offenders and 43 matched controls) identified the onset of emotional expressions in animated morph clips that gradually changed from neutral to one of the six basic emotions. Half of the offenders were then implicitly trained to direct attention to salient face regions (attention training, AT) using a modified dot-probe task. The other half underwent the same protocol but the intensity level of the presented expressions was additionally manipulated over the course of training sessions (sensitivity to emotional expressions training, SEE training). Subsequently, participants were reassessed with the animated morph task.
Facial affect recognition was significantly impaired in violent offenders as compared with controls. Further, our results indicate that only the SEE training group exhibited a pronounced improvement in emotion recognition.
We demonstrated for the first time that perceptual insensitivity to facial affect can be addressed by an implicit training that directs attention to salient regions of a face and gradually decreases the intensity of the emotional expression. Future studies should focus on the potential of this intervention to effectively increase empathy and inhibit violent behavior in antisocial individuals.
尽管情感面部表情识别受损已被确凿地证明与反社会行为有关，但对于这种缺陷的可修正性却知之甚少。本研究调查了是否以及在何种情况下可以通过一种简短的内隐训练方法来解决所提出的感知不敏感问题。
使用动态变形任务评估面部情感识别，参与者（44名男性在押暴力罪犯和43名匹配的对照组）在逐渐从中性转变为六种基本情绪之一的动态变形剪辑中识别情绪表达的开始。然后，一半的罪犯通过使用改良的点探测任务被内隐训练以将注意力引导至面部显著区域（注意力训练，AT）。另一半接受相同的方案，但在训练过程中额外操纵所呈现表情的强度水平（对情绪表达的敏感性训练，SEE训练）。随后，用动态变形任务对参与者进行重新评估。
与对照组相比，暴力罪犯的面部情感识别明显受损。此外，我们的结果表明只有SEE训练组在情绪识别方面表现出显著改善。
我们首次证明，通过将注意力引导至面部显著区域并逐渐降低情绪表达强度的内隐训练，可以解决对面部情感的感知不敏感问题。未来的研究应关注这种干预措施在有效提高反社会个体的同理心和抑制暴力行为方面的潜力。
