Facial affect recognition in body dysmorphic disorder versus obsessive-compulsive disorder: An eye-tracking study.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is characterised by repetitive behaviours and/or mental acts occurring in response to preoccupations with perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). This study aimed to investigate facial affect recognition in BDD using an integrated eye-tracking paradigm.

METHOD:

Participants were 21 BDD patients, 19 obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients and 21 healthy controls (HC), who were age-, sex-, and IQ-matched. Stimuli were from the Pictures of Facial Affect (Ekman & Friesen, 1975), and outcome measures were affect recognition accuracy as well as spatial and temporal scanpath parameters.

RESULTS:

Relative to OCD and HC groups, BDD patients demonstrated significantly poorer facial affect perception and an angry recognition bias. An atypical scanning strategy encompassing significantly more blinks, fewer fixations of extended mean durations, higher mean saccade amplitudes, and less visual attention devoted to salient facial features was found.

CONCLUSIONS:

Patients with BDD were substantially impaired in the scanning of faces, and unable to extract affect-related information, likely indicating deficits in basic perceptual operations.

• Authors: Wei Lin Toh, David J Castle, Susan L Rossell
• Journal: Journal of anxiety disorders (J Anxiety Disord) Vol. 35 Pg. 49-59 (Oct 2015) ISSN: 1873-7897 [Electronic] Netherlands
• PMID: 26363226 (Publication Type: Comparative Study, Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
• Copyright: Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Topics

• Adult
• Affect
• Analysis of Variance
• Attention (physiology)
• Body Dysmorphic Disorders (psychology)
• Eye Movement Measurements
• Face
• Facial Recognition
• Female
• Humans
• Male
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (psychology)