Citation

Kamboj SK, Joye A, Bisby JA, Das RK, Platt B, Curran HV. Psychopharmacology 2013; 227(1): 31-39.

Affiliation

Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK, sunjeev.kamboj@ucl.ac.uk.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00213-012-2940-5

PMID

23263458

Abstract

RATIONALE: Studies of affect recognition can inform our understanding of the interpersonal effects of alcohol and help develop a more complete neuropsychological profile of this drug. OBJECTIVES: The objective of the study was to examine affect recognition in social drinkers using a novel dynamic affect-recognition task, sampling performance across a range of evolutionarily significant target emotions and neutral expressions. METHODS: Participants received 0, 0.4 or 0.8 g/kg alcohol in a double-blind, independent groups design. Relatively naturalistic changes in facial expression-from neutral (mouth open) to increasing intensities of target emotions, as well as neutral (mouth closed)-were simulated using computer-generated dynamic morphs. Accuracy and reaction time were measured and a two-high-threshold model applied to hits and false-alarm data to determine sensitivity and response bias. RESULTS: While there was no effect on the principal emotion expressions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger and disgust), compared to those receiving 0.8 g/kg of alcohol and placebo, participants administered with 0.4 g/kg alcohol tended to show an enhanced response bias to neutral expressions. Exploration of this effect suggested an accompanying tendency to misattribute neutrality to sad expressions following the 0.4-g/kg dose. CONCLUSIONS: The 0.4-g/kg alcohol-but not 0.8 g/kg-produced a limited and specific modification in affect recognition evidenced by a neutral response bias and possibly an accompanying tendency to misclassify sad expressions as neutral. In light of previous findings on involuntary negative memory following the 0.4-g/kg dose, we suggest that moderate-but not high-doses of alcohol have a special relevance to emotional processing in social drinkers.

Language: en