TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2023//
TI  - Altered attentional processing of facial expression features in severe alcohol use disorder: an eye-tracking study
JO  - Journal of psychopathology and clinical science
A1  - Pabst, Arthur
A1  - Bollen, Zoé
A1  - Masson, Nicolas
A1  - Gautier, Mado
A1  - Geus, Christophe
A1  - Maurage, Pierre
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - Social cognition impairments, and notably emotional facial expression (EFE) recognition difficulties, as well as their functional and clinical correlates, are increasingly documented in severe alcohol use disorder (SAUD). However, insights into their underlying mechanisms are lacking. Here, we tested if SAUD was associated with alterations in the attentional processing of EFEs. In a preregistered study, 40 patients with SAUD and 40 healthy controls (HCs) had to identify the emotional expression conveyed by faces while having their gaze recorded by an eye-tracker. We assessed indices of initial (first fixation locations) and later (number of fixations and dwell-time) attention with reference to regions of interest corresponding to the eyes, mouth, and nose, which carry key information for EFE recognition. We centrally found that patients had less first fixations to key facial features in general, as well as less fixations and dwell time to the eyes specifically, relative to the rest of the face, compared to controls. These effects were invariant across emotional expressions. Additional exploratory analyses revealed that patients with SAUD had a less structured viewing pattern than controls. These results offer novel, direct, evidence that patients with SAUD's socioaffective difficulties already emerge at the facial attentional processing stage, along with precisions regarding the nature and generalizability of the effects. Potential implications for the mechanistic conceptualization and treatment of social cognition difficulties in SAUD are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 2769-7541
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/abn0000868
ID  - ref1
ER  -