Emotional perception in eating disorders.

OBJECTIVE

It remains an open question whether there are basic emotional perception and emotional processing deficits in eating disorders (ED). The aim of this study was to explore deficits in emotional perception in restrictive anorexia nervosa (AN-R) and bulimia nervosa (BN), using visual emotional stimuli.

METHOD: Thirty-four patients with ED (19 with BN and 15 with AN-R) were compared with 25 controls. Visual stimuli from the international affective picture system were used.

RESULTS

Patients with AN-R showed increased fear when confronted with stimuli containing anger, whereas patients with BN showed a tendency towards decreased fear. There were no other fundamental differences in the emotional perception of fear, happiness, sadness, and anger.

DISCUSSION: The finding of increased fear when exposed to the emotion of anger might be attributed to introversion and conflict avoidance of anorectic patients. No other basic deficiency of emotional perception was found.