Impaired processing of emotion in music, faces and voices supports a generalized emotional decoding deficit in alcoholism.
OBJECTIVE
To test the generalized emotional decoding impairment hypothesis in alcoholism.


METHODS
Cross-sectional behavioural study comparing emotion recognition conveyed by faces, voices and musical excerpts.


METHODS
Alcohol detoxification unit of Brugmann University Hospital.


METHODS
Twenty-five recently detoxified alcohol-dependent patients were compared to 25 normal controls matched for sex, age and educational level.


METHODS
From faces, voices and musical excerpts, participants were instructed to rate the intensity of several emotions on a scale from 0 for 'absent' to 9 for 'highly present'. Depression, anxiety and sustained/selective attention capacities were controlled for.


RESULTS
Alcohol-dependent patients were less accurate than controls in identifying the target emotion in faces (P < 0.001), voices (P < 0.001) and musical excerpts (P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
Alcohol-dependent patients who are completing detoxification are impaired in recognizing emotions conveyed by faces, voices and music; these results suggest a generalized emotional decoding impairment. Hypothetically, deficits in the fronto-parietal mirror neurone system could link all these disturbances together.
Laboratoire de Psychologie Médicale et d'Addictologie, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. ckornrei@ulb.ac.be
Charles
C
Kornreich
Damien
D
Brevers
Delphine
D
Canivet
Elsa
E
Ermer
Cecilia
C
Naranjo
Eric
E
Constant
Paul
P
Verbanck
Salvatore
S
Campanella
Xavier
X
Noël
D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000209:etiology*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004644:Emotions; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D056345:Theory of Mind / Q000502:physiology*; D014831:Voice