Clear indications of emotion depend on vivid stimuli
Implications for style of communication with depressed patients
In this issue, recognition of emotion in depressed subjects is the focus of a paper by Kan et al (pp 1667–71).1 In contrast to others, these authors report that recognition of positive and negative visual and prosodic emotions is not impaired in depressed patients. Differences in methodological approaches most likely explain the discrepancy. Whereas earlier authors relied on presentation of static visual images, Kan and colleagues used moving facial stimuli, and it appears that the nature (clarity) of the latter stimulus helped depressed subjects …
