Grzelak Lauren N, Glazer James E, Klemballa David M, Nabb Carver B, Mittal Vijay A, Walther Sebastian, Shankman Stewart A, Letkiewicz Allison M
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stahl Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA.
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
J Affect Disord. 2025 Oct 15;387:119531. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2025.119531. Epub 2025 May 27.
Deficits in the recognition of emotional information may contribute to the social dysfunction that characterizes depression. Emotion recognition studies in depression, however, have predominately used facial stimuli - a notable limitation as emotion is also inferred from body movement. The present study used a large set of point-light display (PLD) videos, which are minimalistic representations of dynamic whole-body motion, to assess emotion recognition abilities in depression. First, a sample was collected via MTurk (N = 101) to establish normative emotion category ratings (Happy, Sad, Afraid, Angry, Neutral) for each video. A separate sample of healthy controls (N = 83) and lifetime MDD (N = 142) rated the emotion of each video. Test-retest stability of body affect ratings were also assessed for a subset of participants. There were no significant group differences on accuracy for any emotion category, but individuals with greater depressive symptoms exhibited lower accuracy for neutral body affect relative to those with lower depressive symptoms. This effect was not accounted for by co-occurring anxiety symptoms, highlighting the specificity of the effects to depression. Additionally, body affect ratings showed significant test-retest stability over six months for all emotions. In sum, individuals with greater depressive severity may misinterpret neutral body affect as representing an emotional expression. Future studies should clarify the role of impaired body affect recognition in broader social impairments and course of illness.
对情绪信息识别的缺陷可能导致抑郁症所特有的社会功能障碍。然而，抑郁症的情绪识别研究主要使用面部刺激——这是一个显著的局限性，因为情绪也可以从身体动作中推断出来。本研究使用了大量点光显示（PLD）视频，这些视频是动态全身运动的简约表示，以评估抑郁症患者的情绪识别能力。首先，通过亚马逊土耳其机器人（MTurk）收集了一个样本（N = 101），为每个视频建立规范的情绪类别评分（快乐、悲伤、恐惧、愤怒、中性）。另外抽取了一个健康对照组样本（N = 83）和终生患有重度抑郁症（MDD）的样本（N = 142），让他们对每个视频的情绪进行评分。还对一部分参与者的身体情感评分的重测稳定性进行了评估。在任何情绪类别上，两组在准确性方面均无显著差异，但抑郁症状较重的个体相对于抑郁症状较轻的个体，对中性身体情感的识别准确性较低。这种效应不能用同时出现的焦虑症状来解释，这突出了这些效应对抑郁症的特异性。此外，所有情绪的身体情感评分在六个月内都显示出显著的重测稳定性。总之，抑郁严重程度较高的个体可能会将中性身体情感误解为一种情绪表达。未来的研究应该阐明身体情感识别受损在更广泛的社会障碍和疾病进程中的作用。
