Detection of facial expressions of emotions in depression

Research on perceptual and attentional processes in depression has shown th at depressed as opposed to nondepressed individuals do not exhibit a positi ve perceptual bias in multistimulus representations. In the present study a face-in-the-crowd task was applied to examine the relationship between dep ression and spatial detection of facial expression of positive and negative emotions. A face-in-the-crowd task was administered to 30 subjects (15 cli nically stabilized depressed inpatients and 15 normal subjects) using displ ays of schematic faces. Depressed subjects showed no performance difference s in the detection of negative laces and no differences in decision latency for the control condition tall neutral faces) compared to normal subjects. Depressed subjects, however, were significantly slower in responding to po sitive faces than normal subjects. Our data suggest that depressive mood is associated with a reduced spatial attention to positive facial expression and not with an abnormal spatial processing of negative facial expression. An implication is that lowered vigilance for facial expressions oi joy and happiness may affect adversely interpersonal relationships in depressed sub jects.