Junfeng Guo1,2, Yingjuan Ma1,3,4, Zhenhua Liu5, Fumin Wang5, Xunyao Hou1,3,4, Jian Chen1,3,4, Yan Hong1,3,4, Song Xu1,3,4, Xueping Liu1,3,4. 1. Department of Senile Neurology, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Shandong, China. 2. Department of Rehabilitation, Weihai Municipal Hospital, Shandong University, Shandong, China. 3. Department of Anti-Ageing, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Shandong, China. 4. Anti-Aging Monitoring Laboratory, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Shandong, China. 5. Center of Sleep Medicine, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Shandong, China.
Abstract
STUDY OBJECTIVES: People show a facial recognition speed advantage, termed positive classification advantage (PCA), when judging whether a facial expression is happy compared to angry or sad. This study investigated emotional face recognition by patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) with impaired neurocognition. METHODS: Thirty-four patients with OSA and 26 healthy control patients who underwent 1 night of polysomnographic evaluation before recruitment were asked to complete an emotion recognition task. Accuracy rates and reaction times were recorded and analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance. RESULTS: When participants were asked to classify positive (happy) versus negative (sad) emotional expressions, the phenomenon of PCA disappeared. Importantly, however, compared with the control patients who showed PCA, patients with OSA identified sad faces faster but were similar in processing happy faces. CONCLUSIONS: In accordance with previous studies that showed depressive emotion in patients with OSA, our results indicate that patients with OSA show negative bias in facial expression recognition, which might lead to decline in ability of social communication.
STUDY OBJECTIVES:People show a facial recognition speed advantage, termed positive classification advantage (PCA), when judging whether a facial expression is happy compared to angry or sad. This study investigated emotional face recognition by patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) with impaired neurocognition. METHODS: Thirty-four patients with OSA and 26 healthy control patients who underwent 1 night of polysomnographic evaluation before recruitment were asked to complete an emotion recognition task. Accuracy rates and reaction times were recorded and analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance. RESULTS: When participants were asked to classify positive (happy) versus negative (sad) emotional expressions, the phenomenon of PCA disappeared. Importantly, however, compared with the control patients who showed PCA, patients with OSA identified sad faces faster but were similar in processing happy faces. CONCLUSIONS: In accordance with previous studies that showed depressive emotion in patients with OSA, our results indicate that patients with OSA show negative bias in facial expression recognition, which might lead to decline in ability of social communication.