| dc.description.abstract | Past research has suggested altered facial emotion detection (FED) with depressive symptoms,
oral contraceptive (OC) use, and premenstrual symptoms. Altered FED may contribute to and
maintain negative mood associated with OC side effects, premenstrual dysphoric disorder
(PMDD), and other depressive disorders. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects
of depressive symptoms, OC use, and premenstrual symptoms on FED using a novel task that
examines detection thresholds. A sample of 163 participants (37 OC using women, 72 freecycling (FC) women, 35 men, 19 other hormonal contraceptive using women) completed the
Facial Emotion Detection Task. The task used neutral to emotional facial expression morphs (15
images per morph), and participants indicated what emotion they detected for each image within
the progressive intensity morph. For all six basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, fearful, surprise,
disgust) two types of scores were calculated: accuracy of responses and the intensity within the
morph at which the correct emotion was detected (image number). Higher depression symptoms
were associated with earlier (i.e., lower intensity) detection across overall emotions. [...] | en_US |
