(Hare, 1998), Might Be Particularly Insensitive To The Affective Signal Communicated Via Nonverbal Behaviors. People Suffering From A Dependency To Alcohol Are Renown To Present Important Difficulties In Their Social And Intimate Relationships, Difficulties That Are Often Related To The Regulation Of Frustration And Anger (Sferrazza, Philippot, Kornreich Et Al., 2002). They Might Thus Also Present Difficulties In Understanding Accurately The Desires And Intentions Of Others Toward Them. Other Clinical Populations, Such As Individuals Suffering From Paranoia May Also Be Suspected Of Presenting Deficits In The Decoding Of Emotional Expression. Indeed, For All These Populations, A Sound Theoretical Rationale Can Be Constructed To Support The Notion That A Nonverbal Deficit Might Constitute A Maintenance Factor For Their Clinical Condition. Similarly, For All The Clinical Conditions Mentioned Above, This Notion Is Supported By A Strong Conviction Of Clinicians Working In The Field. The Aim Of The Present Contribution Is To Examine The Empirical Evidence For A Nonverbal Deficit In Three Clinical Populations That Are Especially Characterized By Difficulties In Interpersonal Relationships: Social Phobia, Psychopathy, And Alcohol Dependence. For Each Population, We Will Review Experiments From Our And Others' Laboratories With Three Questions In Mind: What Do We Know About Potential Nonverbal Deficits Or Bias In That Population That Could Be Applied And Used By Practitioners?; What Are The Myths That Need To Be Dispelled?; What Are The Current Limitations Of The Area? Before Addressing These Questions, We Need To Distinguish Among The Different Types Of Deficits And Biases That Might Be Encountered. First, One Should Differentiate Between Deficits In The Evaluation Of The Intensity Of The Emotion Conveyed By The Face, And The Accuracy Of The Emotion Attributed. In Other Words, One Can Over- Or Under-Estimate The Intensity Of An Emotion That Is Present On The Face Of The Interaction Partner; For Example, The Psychopath Can Underestimate The Intensity Of The Sadness Or Distress Expressed By The
Facial Expression Decoding Deficits in Clinical Populations with Interpersonal Relationship Dysfunctions The existentialist French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre is famous for his statement "Hell is the others." This pessimistic stance is actually an "a contrario" claim that the secret of happiness rests, at least partly, in the way we relate to others. At an even more basic level in our social species, interactive adjustment to and coordination with others are central to our survival. Successful interaction, adjustment, and coordination with others depend upon many emotional processes, and more specifically on emotional communication and coordination. A failure to adequately communicate one's emotional and motivational state and/or to accurately perceive the internal state of others is likely to result in interpersonal and personal problems. This notion is supported by theories and empirical data relating nonverbal social skills and more general social competence, or psychopathology (e.g., Perez & Riggio, 2003). Indeed, several lines of research have demonstrated that the capacity to accurately decode facial expression is an acquired skill that developsuntil adolescence (Gross & Ballif, 1991). Further, this skill is related to more general social skills in adults (Patterson, 1999) as well as in children (Philippot & Feldman, 1990). Poor skills in decoding emotional facial expression have been related to clinical conditions as various as depression (Bouhuys, 2003), alcohol dependency (Philippot, Kornreich & Blairy, 2003), or schizophrenia (Kring& Earnst, 2003). However, the causal direction of this relation remains an open issue: Are some clinical conditions a consequence of a basic emotional deficit, such as a deficit in decoding nonverbal expression of emotion, or is this latter deficit the consequence of the clinical condition? One can speculate that many interpersonal problems might result from a deficit in decoding facial...
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