Recognition of static and dynamic emotional facial expressions in mild cognitive impairment, healthy elderly and young people.

Abstract

Introduction: The ability to recognize emotions is essential for social cognition, and its impairment can affect social interactions, contributing to loneliness and the worsening of issues in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This study aims to investigate the ability to recognize emotional facial expressions in MCI individuals compared to healthy elderly and young individuals.

Method: We evaluated 27 MCI individuals, 31 healthy elderly, and 29 healthy young participants using two tasks: one with static facial expressions (photographs) and another with dynamic ones (video clips).

Results: The younger group recognized all negative emotional expressions better than the other two groups and also performed better on neutral expressions compared to MCI patients. The healthy elderly group outperformed MCI patients in recognizing most expressions, except for happiness and neutral. Additionally, the ability to recognize dynamic expressions was superior to static ones across all groups for several emotions.

Discussion: These results emphasize the importance of assessing the ability to recognize emotional facial expressions within neuropsychological protocols, to help detect this condition early on. Given the pivotal role that emotional facial expressions play in social interactions, these difficulties can contribute to a decline in such interactions and an increase in social isolation.