Recognition of facial expressions of emotion in mood and anxiety disorders

Aim: The purpose of this study was to compare the ability to recognize facial expressions between two groups of depression and anxiety spectrum disorders.
Research method was descriptive by causal-comparative. The statistical population consisted of patients with depression and anxiety spectrum disorders referred to Rouzbeh Hospital. Among them, a sample of 60 was selected by available sampling method. The data collection tool was the Persian version of the computerised software of the Ekman andFriesen test (1976).Data were analyzed using independent ttest.
The results show that there is no difference in the total score between two groups, but the depressed group indicates better recognition in sadness while the anxiety group displays better recognition in fear. Depressed group both in the total time and the amount of time to detect happinessindicates slower. Genders had no effect on the responses of two groups.
Probably an important part of cognitive-emotional biases in depression is due to patient's inability in recognizing the happiness andattention more than usual to the sadness. Likewise, anxiety makes people more Biased to fear emotion.