Oxytocin increases recognition of masked emotional faces
Abstract
The neuropeptide oxytocin has been shown to improve many aspects of social cognitive functioning, including facial emotion recognition, and to promote social approach behaviour. In the present study, we investigated the modulatory effects of oxytocin on the recognition of briefly presented facial expressions. In order to diversify the degree of visual awareness for the facial stimuli, presentation duration was systematically varied. Fifty-six participants were administered intranasal oxytocin or a placebo in a double-blind, randomized, between-subjects design. Participants viewed angry and happy target faces or neutral distractors for 18, 35, or 53 ms subsequently masked by neutral faces. Participants had to indicate the presence or absence of the briefly presented target face. Discrimination indices (d') showed that oxytocin generally enhanced detection accuracy of emotional stimuli. This effect was more pronounced for the recognition of happy faces. We provide evidence that a single dose of intranasally administered oxytocin enhances detection of briefly presented emotional stimuli. The possible role of stimulus valence and recognition difficulty is discussed.
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IN-OT improves emotion recognition.
“Researchers found that IN-OT increases cooperation and social trust in others (Kosfeld et al. 2005), increases envy and schadenfreude in situations of loss (Shamay-Tsoory et al. 2009), enhances mind-reading capacities (Domes et al. 2007b), increases memory for faces (Rimmele et al. 2009), and improves emotion recognition (Schulze et al. 2011).”
From A precision medicine approach to oxytocin trials (2017) · cites this paper as Schulze et al. 2011
Intranasal OT selectively enhances the recognition of fear and happiness.
“intranasal OT selectively enhances the recognition of fear and happiness [10], [11], [12]”
From A direct examination of the effect of intranasal administration of oxytocin on approach-avoidance motor responses to emotional stimuli (2013) · cites this paper as [12]
Previous studies have shown that the enhancing effect of OT nasal spray on the processing of faces is independent of the sex of stimuli faces.
“However, it is worth noting that previous studies have shown that the enhancing effect of OT nasal spray on the processing of faces is independent of the sex of stimuli faces [10], [34], [12].”
From A direct examination of the effect of intranasal administration of oxytocin on approach-avoidance motor responses to emotional stimuli (2013) · cites this paper as [12]
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“However, enhanced activity for dorsal and lateral subregions of the amygdala for happy faces presented for 150 ms was reported recently (Gamer et al., 2010), which might be associated with enhanced emotion recognition performance as shown in the present study.”
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- Authors
- Schulze, L., Lischke, A., Greif, J., Herpertz, S. C., Heinrichs, M., & Domes, G.
- Affiliations
- Stiftung Charité (DE)
- Heidelberg University (DE)
- University of Rostock (DE)
- University of Freiburg (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Domes, Gregor
- Venue
- Psychoneuroendocrinology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-10
- Volume
- 36
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1378-1382
- ISSN
- 0306-4530 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2160924654
- Cited by
- 180
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 26 · 2012: 22
- FWCI
- 28.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychoneuroendocrinology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Bank (Australian Catholic University) (submittedVersion)
- FreiDok plus (Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Sensory Systems › Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies
- Keywords
- oxytocin, facial emotion recognition, masked stimuli, intranasal administration, happy faces, angry faces, visual awareness, stimulus valence, social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Awareness, Double-Blind Method, Emotions, Face, Facial Expression, Humans, Male, Oxytocin, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Perceptual Masking, Up-Regulation, Recognition, Psychology, Young Adult
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