title: Facial Emotion Recognition in Bipolar Disorder and Healthy Aging.
abstract: Emotional face recognition is impaired in bipolar disorder, but it is not clear whether this is specific for the illness. Here, we investigated how aging and bipolar disorder influence dynamic emotional face recognition. Twenty older adults, 16 bipolar patients, and 20 control subjects performed a dynamic affective facial recognition task and a subsequent rating task. Participants pressed a key as soon as they were able to discriminate whether the neutral face was assuming a happy or angry facial expression and then rated the intensity of each facial expression. Results showed that older adults recognized happy expressions faster, whereas bipolar patients recognized angry expressions faster. Furthermore, both groups rated emotional faces more intensely than did the control subjects. This study is one of the first to compare how aging and clinical conditions influence emotional facial recognition and underlines the need to consider the role of specific and common factors in emotional face recognition.
authors.affiliation: *Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Foggia, Foggia, Italy; †Harvard Medical School, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Boston, MA; and ‡Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Chieti, Chieti, Italy.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Altamura
authors.forename: Flavia A
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Padalino
authors.forename: Eleonora
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Stella
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Balzotti
authors.forename: Antonello
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bellomo
authors.forename: Rocco
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Palumbo
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Di Domenico
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mammarella
authors.forename: Beth
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fairfield
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000786:Anger; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D055815:Young Adult