Reduced Sensitivity to Emotional Facial Expressions in Borderline Personality Disorder: Effects of Emotional Valence and Intensity

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Hagenhoff ◽  
N. Franzen ◽  
L. Gerstner ◽  
G. Koppe ◽  
G. Sammer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Disorder Effects

scholarly journals Women With Borderline Personality Disorder Show Reduced Identification of Emotional Facial Expressions and a Heightened Negativity Bias

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 677-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Vestergaard ◽  
Mickey T. Kongerslev ◽  
Marianne S. Thomsen ◽  
Birgit Bork Mathiesen ◽  
Catherine J. Harmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Negativity Bias ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Probe Task ◽  
Healthy Female

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) frequently display impairments in the identification of emotional facial expressions paralleled by a negativity bias. However, it remains unclear whether misperception of facial expressions is a key psychopathological marker of BPD. To address this question, the authors examined 43 women diagnosed with BPD and 56 healthy female controls using an emotion face identification task and a face dot-probe task together with measures on psychopathology. Compared to controls, women with BPD showed impaired identification of disgusted and angry faces concurrent with a bias to misclassify faces as angry, and a faster preconscious vigilance for fearful relative to happy facial expressions. Increased severity of borderline symptoms and global psychopathology in BPD patients were associated with reduced ability to identify angry facial expressions and a stronger negativity bias to anger. The findings indicate that BPD patients who misperceive face emotions have the greatest mental health issues.

scholarly journals Facial and Vocal Expressions During Clinical Interviews Suggest an Emotional Modulation Paradox in Borderline Personality Disorder: An Explorative Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Villanueva-Valle ◽  
José-Luis Díaz ◽  
Said Jiménez ◽  
Andrés Rodríguez-Delgado ◽  
Iván Arango de Montis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heart Rate ◽  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Emotional Modulation ◽  
Psychiatric Interview

Videotape recordings obtained during an initial and conventional psychiatric interview were used to assess possible emotional differences in facial expressions and acoustic parameters of the voice between Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) female patients and matched controls. The incidence of seven basic emotion expressions, emotional valence, heart rate, and vocal frequency (f0), and intensity (dB) of the discourse adjectives and interjections were determined through the application of computational software to the visual (FaceReader) and sound (PRAAT) tracks of the videotape recordings. The extensive data obtained were analyzed by three statistical strategies: linear multilevel modeling, correlation matrices, and exploratory network analysis. In comparison with healthy controls, BPD patients express a third less sadness and show a higher number of positive correlations (14 vs. 8) and a cluster of related nodes among the prosodic parameters and the facial expressions of anger, disgust, and contempt. In contrast, control subjects showed negative or null correlations between such facial expressions and prosodic parameters. It seems feasible that BPD patients restrain the facial expression of specific emotions in an attempt to achieve social acceptance. Moreover, the confluence of prosodic and facial expressions of negative emotions reflects a sympathetic activation which is opposed to the social engagement system. Such BPD imbalance reflects an emotional alteration and a dysfunctional behavioral strategy that may constitute a useful biobehavioral indicator of the severity and clinical course of the disorder. This face/voice/heart rate emotional expression assessment (EMEX) may be used in the search for reliable biobehavioral correlates of other psychopathological conditions.

scholarly journals Enhanced Detection of Emotional Facial Expressions in Borderline Personality Disorder

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 217-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Schulze ◽  
Gregor Domes ◽  
Dürken Köppen ◽  
Sabine C. Herpertz
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions

Facial Emotion Perception in Families Affected With Borderline Personality Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (Supplement A) ◽  
pp. 132-148
Author(s):  
Tahira Gulamani ◽  
Achala H. Rodrigo ◽  
Amanda A. Uliaszek ◽  
Anthony C. Ruocco
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Familial Aggregation ◽  
Emotion Perception ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Comparable Accuracy

Emotion perception biases may precipitate problematic interpersonal interactions in families affected with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and lead to conflictual relationships. In the present study, the authors investigated the familial aggregation of facial emotion recognition biases for neutral, happy, sad, fearful, and angry expressions in probands with BPD (n = 89), first-degree biological relatives (n = 67), and healthy controls (n = 87). Relatives showed comparable accuracy and response times to controls in recognizing negative emotions in aggregate and most discrete emotions. For sad expressions, both probands and relatives displayed slower response latencies, and they were more likely than controls to perceive sad expressions as fearful. Nonpsychiatrically affected relatives were slower than controls in responding to negative emotional expressions in aggregate, and fearful and sad facial expressions more specifically. These findings uncover potential biases in perceiving sad and fearful facial expressions that may be transmitted in families affected with BPD.

Negative bias in fast emotion discrimination in borderline personality disorder

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 855-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Dyck ◽  
U. Habel ◽  
J. Slodczyk ◽  
J. Schlummer ◽  
V. Backes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Negative Bias ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Co Morbidity ◽  
Direct Discrimination

BackgroundThe ability to decode emotional information from facial expressions is crucial for successful social interaction. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by serious problems in interpersonal relationships and emotional functioning. Empirical research on facial emotion recognition in BPD has been sparsely published and results are inconsistent. To specify emotion recognition deficits in BPD more closely, the present study implemented two emotion recognition tasks differing in response format.MethodNineteen patients with BPD and 19 healthy subjects were asked to evaluate the emotional content of visually presented stimuli (emotional and neutral faces). The first task, the Fear Anger Neutral (FAN) Test, required a rapid discrimination between negative or neutral facial expressions whereas in the second task, the Emotion Recognition (ER) Test, a precise decision regarding default emotions (sadness, happiness, anger, fear and neutral) had to be achieved without a time limit.ResultsIn comparison to healthy subjects, BPD patients showed a deficit in emotion recognition only in the fast discrimination of negative and neutral facial expressions (FAN Test). Consistent with earlier findings, patients demonstrated a negative bias in the evaluation of neutral facial expressions. When processing time was unlimited (ER Test), BPD patients performed as well as healthy subjects in the recognition of specific emotions. In addition, an association between performance in the fast discrimination task (FAN Test) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) co-morbidity was indicated.ConclusionsOur data suggest a selective deficit of BPD patients in rapid and direct discrimination of negative and neutral emotional expressions that may underlie difficulties in social interactions.

scholarly journals What’s in a face? Mentalizing in borderline personality disorder based on dynamically changing facial expressions.

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedicte Lowyck ◽  
Patrick Luyten ◽  
Dominique Vanwalleghem ◽  
Rudi Vermote ◽  
Linda C. Mayes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Borderline Personality

Facial emotional expression in reaction to social exclusion in borderline personality disorder

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (9) ◽  
pp. 1929-1938 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Staebler ◽  
B. Renneberg ◽  
M. Stopsack ◽  
P. Fiedler ◽  
M. Weiler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Coding System ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions

BackgroundDisturbances in social interaction are a defining feature of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this study, facial emotional expressions, which are crucial for adaptive interactions in social contexts, were assessed in patients with BPD in response to social exclusion.MethodWe examined facial emotional reactions of 35 patients with BPD and 33 healthy controls when playing Cyberball, a virtual ball-tossing game that reliably induces social exclusion. Besides self-reported emotional responses, facial emotional expressions were analyzed by applying the Emotional Facial Action Coding System (EMFACS).ResultsPatients with BPD showed a biased perception of participation. They more readily reported feeling excluded compared to controls even when they were included. In BPD, social exclusion led to an increase in self-reported other-focused negative emotions. Overall, EMFACS analyses revealed that BPD patients reacted with fewer positive expressions and with significantly more mixed emotional expressions (two emotional facial expressions at the same time) compared to the healthy control group when excluded.ConclusionsBesides a negative bias for perceived social participation, ambiguous facial emotional expressions may play an important role in the disturbed relatedness in patients with BPD.

scholarly journals Biased Attention to Facial Expressions of Ambiguous Emotions in Borderline Personality Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 671-S8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Kaiser ◽  
Gitta A. Jacob ◽  
Linda van Zutphen ◽  
Nicolette Siep ◽  
Andreas Sprenger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Personality Disorder ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Stress Disorder ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
Ambiguous Faces

Preliminary evidence suggests that biased attention could be crucial in fostering the emotion recognition abnormalities in borderline personality disorder (BPD). We compared BPD patients to Cluster-C personality disorder (CC) patients and non-patients (NP) regarding emotion recognition in ambiguous faces and their visual attention allocation to the eyes. The role of comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in BPD regarding emotion recognition and visual attention was explored. BPD patients fixated the eyes of angry/happy, sad/happy, and fearful/sad blends longer than non-patients. This visual attention pattern was mainly driven by BPD patients with PTSD. This subgroup also demonstrated longer fixations than CC patients and a trend towards longer fixations than BPD patients without PTSD for the angry/happy and fearful/sad blends. Emotion recognition was not altered in BPD. Biased visual attention towards the eyes of ambiguous facial expressions in BPD might be due to trauma-related attentional bias rather than to impairments in facial emotion recognition.

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