Case-control study, 2017
Do women with PMS recognize facial emotions differently depending on their menstrual cycle?
Women with PMS struggle more to recognize sad and surprised faces during the luteal phase. However, women without PMS also had trouble recognizing sad faces then, so this pattern is not unique to PMS.
What they did
60 women (33 with PMS and 27 without PMS) were shown 56 photographs of faces with different emotional expressions during two phases of their menstrual cycle: the luteal phase and the follicular phase.
What they found
Women with PMS recognized sad faces worse in the luteal phase than the follicular phase (p=0.003). They also recognized surprised faces worse in the luteal phase (p=0.019). Women without PMS recognized sad faces worse in the luteal phase (p=0.008). There were no significant differences between the two groups overall.
What it means for you
The luteal phase makes it harder for women with PMS to recognize certain emotions, which could affect their social interactions. However, this also happens to women without PMS for sad faces, so it's not unique to PMS. The study was small.
33
Women with PMS
p=0.003
Significance for sad face recognition
p=0.019
Significance for surprised faces
About the study
- Original title
- The Comparison of Facial Emotion Recognition Ability in Women with and without Premenstrual Syndrome
- Authors
- Gültekin G, Uludağ C, Çetinkaya S et al.
- Journal
- Turk psikiyatri dergisi = Turkish journal of psychiatry
- Year
- 2017
- Study design
- Case-control study
- Participants
- 33
- What was tested
- Facial emotion recognition test with 56 photographs
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.5080/u20494
Topics
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