Original Article


Facial expression recognition in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Dianlong Hou, Baolan Wang, Jian Chen, Yingjuan Ma, Wenqing Xu, Xunyao Hou, Shuhong Pan, Xueping Liu

Abstract

Background: Facial expression recognition is an important social cognitive skill. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) affects cognitive function. Whether facial expression recognition deficits and attention bias exist in T2DM is unknown. Facial expression search task is a commonly used paradigm to measure emotional processing. In this study, facial expression recognition features of T2DM patients were studied by facial expression search task.
Methods: Thirty outpatients with T2DM and 30 normal controls matched by sex, age and education etc. were selected. Standardized stick drawings with happy, neutral and sad emotion expressions were selected as stimulus materials, and facial expression search task was used to Search for expression targets in neutral interferers to compare the response time between the two groups.
Results: The reaction time of identifying the positive expression (happy) in the diabetic group and the control group was greater than that of the negative expression (sad). The response time of the diabetic group to identify positive expressions and negative expressions was greater than that of the control group. The slope of the search for positive expressions in the diabetic group was 419.14 ms, and the search slope for negative expressions in the diabetic group was 237.97 ms. The slope of the search for positive expressions in the control group was 300.4 ms, and that of the control group for negative expressions was 119.07 ms.
Conclusions: In the diabetic group and the control group, the reaction time of identifying the positive expression was positively delayed compared with the negative expression, which showed a negative attention bias; Patients with type 2 diabetes significantly prolonged the response time of recognizing positive expression and negative expression without obvious clinical cognitive impairment.

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