Medical Faculty, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Department of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2023;14(2):2214388. doi: 10.1080/20008066.2023.2214388.
Individuals with child maltreatment (CM) experiences show alterations in emotion recognition (ER). However, previous research has mainly focused on populations with specific mental disorders, which makes it unclear whether alterations in the recognition of facial expressions are related to CM, to the presence of mental disorders or to the combination of CM and mental disorders, and on ER of emotional, rather than neutral facial expressions. Moreover, commonly, recognition of static stimulus material was researched. We assessed recognition of dynamic (closer to real life) negative, positive and neutral facial expressions in individuals characterised by CM, rather than a specific mental disorder. Moreover, we assessed whether they show a negativity bias for neutral facial expressions and whether the presence of one or more mental disorders affects recognition. Ninety-eight adults with CM experiences (CM+) and 60 non-maltreated (CM-) adult controls watched 200 non-manipulated coloured video sequences, showing 20 neutral and 180 emotional facial expressions, and indicated whether they interpreted each expression as neutral or as one of eight emotions. The CM+ showed significantly lower scores in the recognition of positive, negative and neutral facial expressions than the CM- group ( < .050). Furthermore, the CM+ group showed a negativity bias for neutral facial expressions ( < .001). When accounting for mental disorders, significant effects stayed consistent, except for the recognition of positive facial expressions: individuals from the CM+ group with but not without mental disorder scored lower than controls without mental disorder. CM might have long-lasting influences on the ER abilities of those affected. Future research should explore possible effects of ER alterations on everyday life, including implications of the negativity bias for neutral facial expressions on emotional wellbeing and relationship satisfaction, providing a basis for interventions that improve social functioning.
个体经历过儿童虐待（CM）后，其情绪识别（ER）能力会发生改变。然而，之前的研究主要集中在具有特定精神障碍的人群，这使得 ER 改变是与 CM 相关、与精神障碍的存在相关还是与 CM 和精神障碍的组合相关，以及 ER 是针对情绪表情而非中性表情，这些问题都还不清楚。此外，通常研究的是静态刺激材料的识别。我们评估了 CM 个体对动态（更接近现实生活）负性、正性和中性面部表情的识别能力，而不是特定的精神障碍。此外，我们还评估了他们是否对中性面部表情表现出负性偏见，以及是否存在一种或多种精神障碍会影响识别。我们评估了 98 名经历过 CM（CM+）的成年人和 60 名未受虐待的成年人（CM-）对照组对 200 个非操纵的彩色视频序列的识别能力，这些视频序列显示了 20 个中性和 180 个情绪面部表情，参与者需要判断每个表情是中性还是八种情绪之一。CM+组在识别正性、负性和中性面部表情方面的得分明显低于 CM-组（ < .050）。此外，CM+组对中性面部表情表现出负性偏见（ < .001）。当考虑到精神障碍时，除了对正性面部表情的识别外，显著的影响仍然一致：患有 CM+组但没有精神障碍的个体的得分低于没有精神障碍的对照组。CM 可能对受影响个体的 ER 能力产生持久影响。未来的研究应该探索 ER 改变对日常生活的可能影响，包括中性面部表情负性偏见对情绪幸福感和关系满意度的影响，为改善社交功能的干预措施提供依据。
