High depressive symptomatology reduces emotional reactions to pictures of social interaction

Abstract

Individuals with severe depressive symptoms present diminished facial expressions compared to healthy individuals. This reduced facial expression, which occurs in most depressive patients could impair social relationships. The current study sought to investigate whether pictures with social interaction cues could elicit different modulations of facial expressions and mood states in individuals with depressive symptoms compared to healthy individuals. A total of 85 individuals were divided into depressive and non-depressive groups based on their beck depression inventory scores. Participants viewed pictures containing neutral (objects), affiliative (people interacting socially), and control (people not interacting) scenes. Electromyographic signals were collected during the entire period of visualization of the blocks, and emotional questionnaires were evaluated after each block to assess sociability and altruism (prosocial states). In non-depressed individuals, affiliative pictures increased the activity of the zygomatic muscle compared to both neutral and control pictures and reduced fear of rejection compared to neutral pictures. During the visualization of the affiliative block, zygomatic major muscle activation was higher and fear of rejection was lower in the non-depressive individuals than in the depressive. These effects reflected the low expressions of smiling and sociability to affiliative pictures in depressive individuals. These findings highlight the importance of smiling and prosocial states in social interactions, especially in these individuals.

Figure 1

Least square means of electromyographic activation of the zygomatic major muscle in the non-depressive (white circles) and depressive (black squares) groups during the visualization of neutral, affiliative and control blocks. The points represent the mean value of each volunteer in microvolts transformed by Box-cox. *p < 0.05.

Figure 2

Temporal course of the least square means of electromyographic activity of the zygomaticus major over 12 half-seconds times in microvolts transformed by Box-cox considering the neutral, affiliative and control blocks collapsed for depressive (black squares) and non-depressive (white circles). *p < 0.05 represents the comparison between time 1 and 2, and time 2 and 3 in the non-depressive group.

Figure 3

Temporal course of the least square means of electromyographic activity of the zygomaticus major over 12 half-seconds times in microvolts transformed by Box-cox. of neutral (black circles), affiliative (gray triangles) and control (white squares) pictures considering that both groups collapsed. *p < 0.05 represents the comparison between times 1 and 2, and times 2 and 3 for affiliative pictures.

Figure 4

Fear of rejection scores after viewing the picture blocks. Self-reported values in the non-depressive (white circles) and depressive groups (black squares). The points represent the mean value of the fear of rejection score for each participant. *p < 0.05 and ^#p = 0.06.

Figure 5

Sequence describing the order of the events throughout the experiment. The two experimental groups were subjected to the same sequence of experiments. Initially, they completed the scale of depression. In sequence, the participants started viewing the 28 pictures of the neutral block, 28 pictures of the affiliative block, and 28 pictures of the control block. At the end of each block of pictures, the volunteers completed the affiliative state scales and the altruistic behavior scale. The state scales were applied a total of three times (once after each block). All pictures were displayed for 6 s. Between each image, a black screen with a cross was displayed for 4–5 s. For more details about the complete picture catalogue and its standardization, see Silva et al.. All pictures from the catalogue are property of the present research group, and their reproduction is authorized for scientific purposes only.