title: Borderline Personality and the Detection of Angry Faces.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Many studies have assessed emotion recognition in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder and considerable evidence has been accumulated on patients' ability to categorize emotions. In contrast, their ability to detect emotions has been investigated sparsely. The only two studies that assessed emotion detection abilities found contradictory evidence on patients' ability to detect angry faces.
  
  
  METHODS
  To clarify whether patients with Borderline Personality Disorder show enhanced detection of angry faces, we conducted three experiments: a laboratory study (n = 53) with a clinical sample and two highly powered web studies that measured Borderline features (n1 = 342, n2 = 220). Participants in all studies completed a visual search paradigm, and the reaction times for the detection of angry vs. happy faces were measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Consistently, data spoke against enhanced detection of angry faces in the Borderline groups, indicated by non-significant group (Borderline vs. healthy control) × target (angry vs. happy) interactions, despite highly satisfactory statistical power to detect even small effects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In contrast to emotion categorization, emotion detection appears to be intact in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder and individuals high in Borderline features. The importance of distinguishing between these two processes in future studies is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Johanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hepp
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany.
authors.forename: Benjamin E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Hilbig
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Pascal J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Kieslich
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Herzog
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lis
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schmahl
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim/ Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Inga
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Niedtfeld
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000786:Anger; D001883:Borderline Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult