Visuo-spatial interference affects the identification of emotional facial expressions in unmedicated Parkinson's patients.
There is evidence that visuo-spatial capacity can become overloaded when processing a secondary visual task (Dual Task, DT), as occurs in daily life. Hence, we investigated the influence of the visuo-spatial interference in the identification of emotional facial expressions (EFEs) in early stages of Parkinson's disease (PD). We compared the identification of 24 emotional faces that illustrate six basic emotions in, unmedicated recently diagnosed PD patients (16) and healthy adults (20), under two different conditions: a) simple EFE identification, and b) identification with a concurrent visuo-spatial task (Corsi Blocks). EFE identification by PD patients was significantly worse than that of healthy adults when combined with another visual stimulus.
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain. bgarcia@psi.uned.es
Beatriz
B
García-Rodríguez
Carmen Casares
CC
Guillén
Rosa Jurado
RJ
Barba
Gabriel Rub
GR
io Valladolid
José Antonio Molina
JA
Arjona
Heiner
H
Ellgring
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology