ABSTRACT
RECOGNITION OF EMOTIONAL FACIAL EXPRESSION IN ALCOHOL DEPENDENT
INPATIENTS
Dursun, Pinar
M.S., Department of Psychology
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Faruk Genç / ö / z
June 2007, 130 pages
The ability to recognize emotional facial expressions (EFE) is very critical for social
interaction and daily functioning. Recent studies have shown that alcohol dependent
individuals have deficits in the recognition of these expressions. Thereby, the objective of this
study was to explore the presence of impairment in the decoding of universally recognized
facial expressions -happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, surprise, and neutral expressions-
and to measure their manual reaction times (RT) toward these expressions in alcohol
dependent inpatients. Demographic Information Form, CAGE Alcoholism Inventory, State-
Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), The Symptom Checklist,
and lastly a constructed computer program (Emotion Recognition Test) were administered to
50 detoxified alcohol dependent inpatients and 50 matched-control group participants. It was
hypothesized that alcohol dependents would show more deficits in the accuracy of reading
EFE and would react more rapidly toward negative EFE -fear, anger, disgust, sadness than
control group. Series of ANOVA, ANCOVA, MANOVA and MANCOVA analyses revealed
that alcohol dependent individuals were more likely to have depression and anxiety disorders
than non-dependents. They recognized less but responded faster toward disgusted
expressions than non-dependent individuals. On the other hand, two groups did not differ
significantly in the total accuracy responses. In addition, the levels of depression and anxiety
did not affect the recognition accuracy or reaction times. Stepwise multiple regression
analysis indicated that obsessive-compulsive subscale of SCL, BDI, STAI-S Form, and the
recognition of fearful as well as disgusted expressions were associated with alcoholism.
Results were discussed in relation to the previous findings in the literature. The inaccurate
identification of disgusted faces might be associated with organic deficits resulted from
alcohol consumption or cultural factors that play very important role in displaying
expressions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12608450/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| Creators | Dursun, Pinar |
| Contributors | Gencoz, Faruk |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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