Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/92858
Title: Scanning Patterns of Faces do not Explain Impaired Emotion Recognition in Huntington Disease: Evidence for a High Level Mechanism
Authors: van Asselen, Marieke 
Júlio, Filipa
Januário, Cristina 
Campos, Elzbieta Bobrowicz 
Almeida, Inês 
Cavaco, Sara
Castelo-Branco, Miguel 
Keywords: Huntington’s disease; Emotion recognition; Eye movements; Scanning patterns of faces
Issue Date: 2012
Publisher: Frontiers
Project: PTDC/PSI-PCO/108208/2008 
PTDC/PSI/67381/2006 
Serial title, monograph or event: Frontiers in Psychology
Volume: 3
Abstract: In the current study, we aimed to investigate the emotion recognition impairment in Huntington's disease (HD) patients and define whether this deficit is caused by impaired scanning patterns of the face. To achieve this goal, we recorded eye movements during a two-alternative forced-choice emotion recognition task. HD patients in pre-symptomatic (n = 16) and symptomatic (n = 9) disease stages were tested and their performance was compared to a control group (n = 22). In our emotion recognition task, participants had to indicate whether a face reflected one of six basic emotions. In addition, and in order to define whether emotion recognition was altered when the participants were forced to look at a specific component of the face, we used a second task where only limited facial information was provided (eyes/mouth in partially masked faces). Behavioral results showed no differences in the ability to recognize emotions between pre-symptomatic gene carriers and controls. However, an emotion recognition deficit was found for all six basic emotion categories in early stage HD. Analysis of eye movement patterns showed that patient and controls used similar scanning strategies. Patterns of deficits were similar regardless of whether parts of the faces were masked or not, thereby confirming that selective attention to particular face parts is not underlying the deficits. These results suggest that the emotion recognition deficits in symptomatic HD patients cannot be explained by impaired scanning patterns of faces. Furthermore, no selective deficit for recognition of disgust was found in pre-symptomatic HD patients.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10316/92858
ISSN: 1664-1078
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00031
Rights: openAccess
Appears in Collections:FMUC Medicina - Artigos em Revistas Internacionais

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