The effect of alcohol dependence on automatic visuo-spatial perspective taking

Abstract

Alcohol dependence and perspective taking 2 Highlights Alcoholism is associated with cognitive deficits which may affect social processing  We tested whether alcoholism affects visuo-spatial perspective taking (VSPT) Alcohol dependent (AD) participants show no VSPT deficits in this task  Non-AD participants show an automatic VSPT effect to fearful faces only  However ADs show an automatic VSPT effect to both neutral and fearful faces Alcohol dependence and perspective taking 3 ABSTRACTBackground: Alcoholism is associated with cognitive deficits that affect social

Automatic visual-spatial perspective taking in alcohol-dependence: A study with happy emotional faces

“…The present study therefore uses the same methodology as Cox et al (2016) to measure automatic VSPT in AD and non-AD participants, but with happy instead of fearful faces. With regard to AD and the processing of happiness, studies of labelling and intensity ratings (Clark et al, 2007;Kornreich et al, 2013;Maurage et al, 2009;Philippot et al, 1999) typically show a preservation of explicit happiness processing.…”

“…In previous studies with healthy participants, fearful, but not neutral, faces triggered automatic perspective taking, likely because the additional emotional content increases the salience of the other agents' perspective (Zwickel and Muller, 2010). Cox et al (2016) found both AD and non-AD participants showed a visual-spatial perspective taking reaction time cost (VSPT RT cost) to the fearful faces. This suggests that while AD leads to impaired high-level and explicit social processing, it is not related to generalized social cognition impairments, given that implicit processing of social stimuli appears preserved.…”

“…This would suggest an important need for research into implicit socio-emotional processing in AD. Only one study has directly measured the effect of AD on an automatic social cognition task -visual-spatial perspective taking (Cox et al, 2016). Cox et al (2016) used an automatic visual-spatial perspective taking (VSPT) measure, previously used with a range of healthy and pathological populations (Zwickel and Muller, 2010;Zwickel et al, 2011;Pearson et al, 2013).…”

“…Only one study has directly measured the effect of AD on an automatic social cognition task -visual-spatial perspective taking (Cox et al, 2016). Cox et al (2016) used an automatic visual-spatial perspective taking (VSPT) measure, previously used with a range of healthy and pathological populations (Zwickel and Muller, 2010;Zwickel et al, 2011;Pearson et al, 2013). Participants responded from their own perspective to the location of a dot-probe that appeared to the left/right or above/below facial stimuli conveying neutral or fearful expressions.…”

“…There is some evidence to support a hyper-responsiveness towards reporting negative emotions of facial stimuli in AD (Foisy et al, 2007a;Foisy et al, 2007b;Philippot et al, 1999;Townshend and Duka, 2003: though see Donadon and de Lima Osorio, 2014). Given the potential for the Cox et al (2016) data to have been predominantly triggered by over-estimated negative stimuli, the investigation of whether this effect is also preserved for positive stimuli (i.e., happy faces) is required before strong conclusions can be made about the nature of implicit social processing in AD.…”