Facial emotion recognition and alexithymia in adults with somatoform disorders.
OBJECTIVE
The primary aim of this study was to investigate facial emotion recognition in patients with somatoform disorders (SFD). Also of interest was the extent to which concurrent alexithymia contributed to any changes in emotion recognition accuracy.


METHODS
Twenty patients with SFD and twenty healthy, age, sex and education matched, controls were assessed with the Facially Expressed Emotion Labelling Test of facial emotion recognition and the 26-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-26).


RESULTS
Patients with SFD exhibited elevated alexithymia symptoms relative to healthy controls. Patients with SFD also recognized significantly fewer emotional expressions than did the healthy controls. However, the group difference in emotion recognition accuracy became nonsignificant once the influence of alexithymia was controlled for statistically.


CONCLUSIONS
This suggests that the deficit in facial emotion recognition observed in the patients with SFD was most likely a consequence of concurrent alexithymia. Impaired facial emotion recognition observed in the patients with SFD could plausibly have a negative influence on these individuals' social functioning.
Pedrosa Gil
Francisco
F
Psychosomatic Out-patient Clinic, Department of Medicine Innenstadt, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Pettenkoferstrasse 10, Munich, Germany. Francisco.Pedrosa.Gil@med.uni-muenchen.de
Ridout
Nathan
N
Kessler
Henrik
H
Neuffer
Michaela
M
Schoechlin
Claudia
C
Traue
Harald C
HC
Nickel
Marius
M
D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010555:Personality Inventory; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012016:Reference Values; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000523:psychology*