Alcoholism and judgments of affective stimuli

Abstract

This study sought to differentiate alcoholism-related changes in judgments of emotional stimuli from those of other populations in which such changes have been documented. Two sets of visual stimuli, one containing words and the other containing drawings of faces (representing a range of emotional content), were presented to abstinent alcoholic adults with and without Korsakoff's syndrome, as well as to a healthy control group and four groups of patients with other neurobehavioral disorders: Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Participants rated the stimuli according to emotional valence and intensity of emotion. Results implicated bi-hemispheric frontal and subcortical involvement in the abnormalities of emotion identification associated with alcoholism, and they also support the notion of age-related vulnerabilities in conjunction with alcoholism.

Figure A1

The chart shows the format used for judgments of intensity. Facial stimuli are from Quinn (1990) and Jankowski (1992–1995).

Figure B1

The chart shows the format used for judgments of intensity. Verbal stimuli were chosen on the basis of Hutner and Oscar-Berman (1996) from a list compiled by Paivio, Yuille, and Madigan (1996).

Figure 1

Mean scores for judgments of emotional valence (kind of emotion) for negative face stimuli by alcoholic (AL) and normal control (NC) groups as a function of age (controlling for education). The graph shows judgment scores of the stimuli within the Negative factor, with education fixed at 15 years. Stimuli were rated on a scale ranging from 1 (negative) to 7 (positive), with 4 being neutral. Judgments of the AL group became less negative with age, whereas judgments of the NC group remained constant.

Figure 2

Mean (+ standard error of the mean) judgments of emotional valence (kind of emotion) for Positive face stimuli by the young subgroups: young alcoholic participants (YAL), young normal control participants (YNC), and participants with major depressive disorder (MDD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or schizophrenia (SZ). Stimuli were rated on a scale ranging from 1 (negative) to 4 (neutral) to 7 (positive). Judgments of the positive stimuli made by the YAL group were significantly less positive than those by the YNC group (^*p < .05).

Figure 3

Mean (+ standard error of the mean) judgments of emotional valence (kind of emotion) for negative words by the young subgroups: young alcoholic participants (YAL), young normal control participants (YNC), and participants with major depressive disorder (MDD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or schizophrenia (SZ). Stimuli were rated on a scale ranging from 1 (negative) to 4 (neutral) to 7 (positive). Judgments of the negative stimuli by the PTSD group were significantly less negative than those made by any other young subgroup (^*p < .05).

Figure 4

Mean scores (+ standard error of the mean) for judgments of emotional valence (kind of emotion) for neutral words by the alcoholic (AL) and normal control (NC) groups. Stimuli were rated on a scale ranging from 1 (negative) to 4 (neutral) to 7 (positive). Judgments of the neutral stimuli by the AL group were significantly more positive than those by the NC group (^*p < .05).

Figure 5

Mean (+ standard error of the mean) judgments of emotional valence (kind of emotion) for neutral words by the old subgroups: old alcoholic participants (OAL), old normal control participants (ONC), participants with Korsakoff’s syndrome (KS), and participants with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Stimuli were rated on a scale ranging from 1 (negative) to 4 (neutral) to 7 (positive). Judgments of the neutral stimuli by the KS group were significantly more positive than those made by the ONC group (^*p < .05).

Figure 6

Mean (+ standard error of the mean) judgments of the intensity of emotions (contains emotion) for neutral words by the alcoholic (AL) and normal control (NC) groups. Stimuli were rated for intensity on a scale ranging from 1 (no emotion) to 4 (medium) to 7 (high). Judgments of the neutral words by the AL group were significantly more positive than those by the NC group (^*p < .05).

Figure 7

Mean (+ standard error of the mean) judgments of the intensity of emotion (contains emotion) for neutral words by the old subgroups: old alcoholic participants (OAL), old normal control participants (ONC), participants with Korsakoff’s syndrome (KS), and participants with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Stimuli were rated for intensity on a scale ranging from 1 (no emotion) to 4 (medium) to 7 (high). Judgments of the neutral words by the KS group were significantly more positive than those made by the OAL and ONC groups (^*p < .05).

Figure 8

Mean (+ standard error of the mean) judgments of the intensity of emotion (contains emotion) for neutral words by the young subgroups: young alcoholic participants (YAL), young normal control participants (YNC), and participants with major depressive disorder (MDD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or schizophrenia (SZ). Stimuli were rated on level of intensity on a scale ranging from 1 (no emotion) to 4 (medium) to 7 (high). Judgments of the neutral words by the MDD group were significantly higher than those by the YNC and PTSD groups (^*p < .05), and the SZ group attributed significantly more emotion to the neutral words than did the YAL, YNC, or PTSD groups (^*p < .05).