title: Recognition of emotion from body language among patients with unipolar depression.
abstract: Major depression may be associated with abnormal perception of emotions and impairment in social adaptation. Emotion recognition from body language and its possible implications to social adjustment have not been examined in patients with depression. Three groups of participants (51 with depression; 68 with history of depression in remission; and 69 never depressed healthy volunteers) were compared on static and dynamic tasks of emotion recognition from body language. Psychosocial adjustment was assessed using the Social Adjustment Scale Self-Report (SAS-SR). Participants with current depression showed reduced recognition accuracy for happy stimuli across tasks relative to remission and comparison participants. Participants with depression tended to show poorer psychosocial adaptation relative to remission and comparison groups. Correlations between perception accuracy of happiness and scores on the SAS-SR were largely not significant. These results indicate that depression is associated with reduced ability to appraise positive stimuli of emotional body language but emotion recognition performance is not tied to social adjustment. These alterations do not appear to be present in participants in remission suggesting state-like qualities.
authors.affiliation: Millharbour PICU, Tower Hamlets Centre for Mental Health, Mile End Hospital, London, UK.
authors.forename: Felice
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Loi
authors.forename: Jatin G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Vaidya
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Paradiso
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007697:Kinesics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception; D016138:Walking
keywords: Body language; Emotion; Psychosocial adjustment; Social cognition; Unipolar depression