Effects of Acute Psychosocial Stress on Facial Emotion Recognition

Abstract

Accurate recognition of the emotions of other people is essential for successful human interactions. Previous studies showed inconsistent results of the impact of acute psychosocial stress on emotion recognition. Thus; the present study aimed at investigating the influence of psychosocial stress on the recognition of facial emotional expressions of different valance. Eighty-eight participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups: stress (exposure to the Trier Social Stress Test) and control. Participants of both groups completed a facial emotion recognition test before and after the manipulation. The results demonstrated an enhancement in emotion recognition in the stress group but not in controls. Further analyses revealed that while stress enhanced the accurate recognition of anger; happiness; surprise; and neutral/calmness; it impaired the recognition of fear and had no effect on the recognition of sadness and disgust. The findings are discussed in light of evolutionary assumptions regarding differential processing mechanisms of emotion expressions.T; facial emotion recognition; stress; tsst