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Oxytocin increases recognition of masked emotional faces
Schulze, Lars Lischke, Alexander Greif, Jonas Herpertz, Sabine C. Heinrichs, Markus Domes, Gregor
Schulze, Lars
Lischke, Alexander
Greif, Jonas
Herpertz, Sabine C.
Heinrichs, Markus
Domes, Gregor
Abstract
The neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to improve many aspects of social cognitive functioning, including facial emotion recognition, and to promote social approach behaviour. In the present study, we investigated the modulatory effects of oxytocin on the recognition of briefly presented facial expressions. In order to diversify the degree of visual awareness for the facial stimuli, presentation duration was systematically varied. Fifty-six participants were administered intranasal oxytocin or a placebo in a double-blind, randomized, between-subjects design. Participants viewed angry and happy target faces or neutral distractors for 18, 35, or 53 ms subsequently masked by neutral faces. Participants had to indicate the presence or absence of the briefly presented target face. Discrimination indices (d′) showed that oxytocin generally enhanced detection accuracy of emotional stimuli. This effect was more pronounced for the recognition of happy faces. We provide evidence that a single dose of intranasally administered oxytocin enhances detection of briefly presented emotional stimuli. The possible role of stimulus valence and recognition difficulty is discussed.
Keywords
oxytocin, faces, emotion, recognition, attention, peptides
Date
2011
Type
Journal article
Journal
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Book
Volume
36
Issue
9
Page Range
1378-1382
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Behavioural and Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
File Access
Controlled