Do subclinical anxious and depressive symptoms affect facial emotion recognition? An exploratory investigation

Emotion recognition is a key component of social cognition. Symptoms of depression and anxiety may modulate this ability.

To investigate the effect of subclinical depressive and anxiety symptoms on performance in a facial emotion recognition test.

A total of 203 participants (109 females and 94 males; mean age 48.8±19 years; mean schooling 9.3±5.1 years) without current or past history of psychiatric or neurological disorders were enrolled. None had abnormal scores on the anxiety or depression subscales of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) Scale. All participants (N=203) underwent the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) and the Facial Emotion Recognition Test (FERT), which assesses recognition of: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and neutral expressions. Multivariate analyses included HAD-Anxiety, HAD-Depression, MMSE, age, and schooling as covariates.

Age, schooling, and MMSE were significantly correlated with FERT scores. A significant negative correlation was found between FERT-Total and HAD-Depression (r=-0.22; p<0.002), and between FERT-Fear and HAD-Depression (r=-0.31; p<0.0001). No other significant correlations were observed between FERT scores and psychiatric measures. Anxiety and depression scores were not retained in the final multivariate models, except for a negative correlation between HAD-Anxiety and FERT-Fear.

Subclinical anxious and depressive symptoms have a modest effect on FERT.