Face Tuning in Depression

Abstract

The latest COVID-19 pandemic reveals that unexpected changes elevate depression bringing people apart, but also calling for social sharing. Yet the impact of depression on social cognition and functioning is not well understood. Assessment of social cognition is crucial not only for a better understanding of major depressive disorder (MDD), but also for screening, intervention, and remediation. Here by applying a novel experimental tool, a Face-n-Food task comprising a set of images bordering on the Giuseppe Arcimboldo style, we assessed the face tuning in patients with MDD and person-by-person matched controls. The key benefit of these images is that single components do not trigger face processing. Contrary to common beliefs, the outcome indicates that individuals with depression express intact face responsiveness. Yet, while in depression face sensitivity is tied with perceptual organization, in typical development, it is knotted with social cognition capabilities. Face tuning in depression, therefore, may rely upon altered behavioral strategies and underwriting brain mechanisms. To exclude a possible camouflaging effect of female social skills, we examined gender impact. Neither in depression nor in typical individuals had females excelled in face tuning. The outcome sheds light on the origins of the face sensitivity and alterations in social functioning in depression and mental well-being at large. Aberrant social functioning in depression is likely to be the result of deeply-rooted maladaptive strategies rather than of poor sensitivity to social signals. This has implications for mental well-being under the current pandemic conditions.

Keywords: depression; face pareidolia; face tuning; gender impact; non-face face-like images; social cognition.

Figure 1

Examples of the Giuseppe Arcimboldo style. “The Fruit Basket” or “Reversible Head with Basket of Fruit” (left), “The Gardener” (middle), and “The Cook” (right) by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, a virtuoso Italian painter best known for fascinating portraits composed of fruits, vegetables, and even roasted meat (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_ Arcimboldo; public domain).

Figure 2

Percentage of face responses for each Face-n-Food image in patients with major depressive disorder, MDD (violet) and typically developing, TD, controls (green). The image number reflects its face resemblance (1, the least resembling a face, through 10, the most resembling a face images from the Face-n-Food task; these images had been first published in Pavlova et al. 2015a; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0130363; the Creative Commons Attribution [CC BY] license). Vertical bars represent 95% confidence interval, CI.

Figure 3

Relationship between the face response rate on the Face-n-Food task and scores on the digit span (DS), event arrangement (EA), and picture completion (PC) tests in MDD patients (left panel, triangles) and TD individuals (right panel, diamonds). In MDD, face response rate is positively linked with the scores on the PC test (violet; Pearson product–moment correlation, r(18) = 0.535, P = 0.015), whereas in TD, face response rate is associated with the scores on the EA test (green; r(18) = 0.563, P = 0.01). Correlation matrices on the top summarize these results.

Figure 4

Percentage of face responses for each Face-n-Food image in female patients with MDD and controls (violet and green squares, respectively; left) and male MDD patients and controls (violet and green triangles, respectively; right). The image number reflects its face resemblance (1, the least resembling, through 10, the most resembling a face). Vertical bars represent 95% CI.