Postsurgical Disfigurement Influences Disgust Recognition: A Case-Control Study

Abstract

Background: Little is known about how emotion recognition may be modified in individuals prone to elicit disgust.

Objective: We sought to determine if subjects with total laryngectomy would present a modified recognition of facial expressions of disgust.

Methods: A total of 29 patients presenting with a history of advanced-stage laryngeal cancer were recruited, 17 being surgically treated (total laryngectomy) and 12 treated with chemoradiation therapy only. Based on a validated set of images of facial expressions of fear, disgust, surprise, happiness, sadness and anger displayed by 6 actors, we presented participants with expressions of each emotion at 5 levels of increasing intensity and measured their ability to recognize these emotions.

Results: Participants with (vs without) laryngectomy showed a higher threshold for the recognition of disgust (3.2. vs 2.7 images needed before emotion recognition, p = 0.03) and a lower success rate of correct recognition (75.5% vs 88.9%, p = 0.03).

Conclusion: Subjects presenting with an aesthetic impairment of the head and neck showed poorer performance in disgust recognition when compared with those without disfigurement. These findings might relate either to some perceptual adaptation, habituation phenomenon, or to some higher-level processes related to emotion regulation strategies.

Keywords: cancer; disfigurement; emotion; laryngeal cancer; psycho-oncology.