Survey study, 2015
Does the ability to recognize emotions in faces change with menstrual cycle hormones?
No clear difference in overall emotion recognition across menstrual cycle phases was found. However, estradiol levels were specifically linked to better disgust recognition, and progesterone levels were linked to slower responses to facial expressions in general.
What they did
Women attended one session during follicular phase (days 7-13; n=16), early luteal phase (days 15-19; n=14), or late luteal phase (days 22-27; n=14) of their cycle. They watched dynamic facial expressions (sad, happy, fearful, angry, neutral, disgusted) and identified the emotion. Researchers measured hormone levels and recorded accuracy and reaction times.
What they found
There was no difference in how well women recognized different facial emotions across the three cycle phases. However, progesterone levels were linked to slower reaction times to many facial expressions (anger, happiness, sadness, neutral). Estradiol levels were specifically linked to disgust recognition in three ways: correct responses, tendency to say disgust (response bias), and ability to distinguish disgust from other emotions. Premenstrual symptoms, anxiety, and mood were not linked to emotion recognition or hormone levels.
What it means for you
The study suggests that progesterone may generally slow emotional face processing, while estradiol may have a specific role in disgust processing. This is interesting for understanding how hormones affect emotion recognition, but the sample is very small and limited to one session per woman, so findings may not apply broadly to all women.
16
women in follicular phase
14
women in luteal phases
About the study
- Original title
- A specific association between facial disgust recognition and estradiol levels in naturally cycling women
- Authors
- Kamboj SK, Krol KM, Curran HV
- Journal
- PloS one
- Year
- 2015
- Study design
- Survey study
- Participants
- 16
- What was tested
- None (observational hormone and emotion study)
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122311
Original abstract
Subtle changes in social cognition are associated with naturalistic fluctuations in estrogens and progesterone over the course of the menstrual cycle. Using a dynamic emotion recognition task we aimed to provide a comprehensive description of the association between ovarian hormone levels and emotion recognition performance using a variety of performance metrics. Naturally cycling, psychiatrically healthy women attended a single experimental session during a follicular (days 7-13; n = 16), early luteal (days 15-19; n = 14) or late luteal phase (days 22-27; n = 14) of their menstrual cycle. Correct responses and reaction times to dynamic facial expressions were recorded and a two-high threshold analysis was used to assess discrimination and response bias. Salivary progesterone and estradiol were assayed and subjective measures of premenstrual symptoms, anxiety and positive and negative affect assessed. There was no interaction between cycle phase (follicular, early luteal, late luteal) and facial expression (sad, happy, fearful, angry, neutral and disgusted) on any of the recognition performance metrics. However, across the sample as a whole, progesterone levels were positively correlated with reaction times to a variety of facial expressions (anger, happiness, sadness and neutral expressions). In contrast, estradiol levels were specifically correlated with disgust processing on three performance indices (correct responses, response bias and discrimination). Premenstrual symptoms, anxiety and positive and negative affect were not associated with emotion recognition indices or hormone levels. The study highlights the role of naturalistic variations in ovarian hormone levels in modulating emotion recognition. In particular, progesterone seems to have a general slowing effect on facial expression processing. Our findings also provide the first behavioural evidence of a specific role for estrogens in the processing of disgust in humans.
Reproduced under CC-BY.
Topics
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