Sanja Andric1, Nadja P Maric1,2, Goran Knezevic3, Marina Mihaljevic2, Tijana Mirjanic4, Eva Velthorst5,6, Jim van Os7,8. 1. School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia. 2. Clinic for Psychiatry, Clinical Centre of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. 3. Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia. 4. Special Hospital for Psychiatric Disorders Kovin, Kovin, Serbia. 5. Department of Psychiatry, Academic Medical Centre University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, USA. 6. Departments of Psychiatry and Preventive Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine, New York, USA. 7. South Limburg Mental Health Research and Teaching Network, EURON, Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands. 8. King's Health Partners, Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
Abstract
AIM: The aim of the present study was to examine whether healthy individuals with higher levels of neuroticism, a robust independent predictor of psychopathology, exhibit altered facial emotion recognition performance. METHODS: Facial emotion recognition accuracy was investigated in 104 healthy adults using the Degraded Facial Affect Recognition Task (DFAR). Participants' degree of neuroticism was estimated using neuroticism scales extracted from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. RESULTS: A significant negative correlation between the degree of neuroticism and the percentage of correct answers on DFAR was found only for happy facial expression (significant after applying Bonferroni correction). CONCLUSIONS: Altered sensitivity to the emotional context represents a useful and easy way to obtain cognitive phenotype that correlates strongly with inter-individual variations in neuroticism linked to stress vulnerability and subsequent psychopathology. Present findings could have implication in early intervention strategies and staging models in psychiatry.
AIM: The aim of the present study was to examine whether healthy individuals with higher levels of neuroticism, a robust independent predictor of psychopathology, exhibit altered facial emotion recognition performance. METHODS: Facial emotion recognition accuracy was investigated in 104 healthy adults using the Degraded Facial Affect Recognition Task (DFAR). Participants' degree of neuroticism was estimated using neuroticism scales extracted from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. RESULTS: A significant negative correlation between the degree of neuroticism and the percentage of correct answers on DFAR was found only for happy facial expression (significant after applying Bonferroni correction). CONCLUSIONS: Altered sensitivity to the emotional context represents a useful and easy way to obtain cognitive phenotype that correlates strongly with inter-individual variations in neuroticism linked to stress vulnerability and subsequent psychopathology. Present findings could have implication in early intervention strategies and staging models in psychiatry.