DECREASED PERCEPTUAL SENSITIVITY TO EMOTION-EVOKING STIMULI IN DEPRESSION

We measured two aspects of emotional response in depressed patients, a s a preliminary study of the potential usefulness of such measures for elucidating pathophysiological mechanisms. First we used electromyogr aphy to measure the automatic mimicry on an individual's own face of f acial displays of emotion observed on the faces of others. Next we use d the fused dichotic listening paradigm to measure selective perceptio n of both positive and negative emotion-related words as opposed to ne utral words. Patients failed to show the normal facial mimicry of both positive and negative facial displays, despite normal cognitive proce ssing of the stimuli. They also heard significantly fewer positive and negative words on the dichotic tests than did healthy controls. This suggests that depressed patients are hyposensitive to emotion-related stimuli in general.