An interactive computer program devised by
Murray and colleagues (27)was used to examine
both sensitivity to different facial expressions and
accuracy of emotion recognition. Sensitivity here
refers to the amount of emotional intensity
required by a participant to accurately classify an
emotion, whereas accuracy refers to the percentage
of correct recognition responses for that
emotion. The program has already been used to
show relatively increased sensitivity to anger and
decreased sensitivity to happiness and disgust
among clinically depressed patients compared with
controls, and relatively increased sensitivity to
disgust among patients with eating disorders (27).
A similar variant of the program has also been
used to show decreased sensitivity to emotion in
general among alcoholic individuals (28), and some
evidence for mood-dependent shifts in sensitivity to
both happiness and sadness in a single rapidcycling
bipolar patient (29).