Dataset Information

Preliminary Evidence of a Missing Self Bias in Face Perception for Individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

ABSTRACT: Failing to recognize one's mirror image can signal an abnormality in one's sense of self. In dissociative identity disorder (DID), individuals often report that their mirror image can feel unfamiliar or distorted. They also experience some of their own thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations as if they are nonautobiographical and sometimes as if instead, they belong to someone else. To assess these experiences, we designed a novel backwards masking paradigm in which participants were covertly shown their own face, masked by a stranger's face. Participants rated feelings of familiarity associated with the strangers' faces. 21 control participants without trauma-generated dissociation rated masks, which were covertly preceded by their own face, as more familiar compared to masks preceded by a stranger's face. In contrast, across two samples, 28 individuals with DID and similar clinical presentations (DSM-IV Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified type 1) did not show increased familiarity ratings to their own masked face. However, their familiarity ratings interacted with self-reported identity state integration. Individuals with higher levels of identity state integration had response patterns similar to control participants. These data provide empirical evidence of aberrant self-referential processing in DID/DDNOS and suggest this is restored with identity state integration.

SUBMITTER: Lebois LAM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6397096 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar-Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Preliminary Evidence of a Missing Self Bias in Face Perception for Individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Lebois Lauren A M LAM Wolff Jonathan D JD Hill Sarah B SB Bigony Cara E CE Winternitz Sherry S Ressler Kerry J KJ Kaufman Milissa L ML

Journal of trauma & dissociation : the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation (ISSD) 20181116 2

Failing to recognize one's mirror image can signal an abnormality in one's sense of self. In dissociative identity disorder (DID), individuals often report that their mirror image can feel unfamiliar or distorted. They also experience some of their own thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations as if they are nonautobiographical and sometimes as if instead, they belong to someone else. To assess these experiences, we designed a novel backwards masking paradigm in which participants were covertly ...[more]

PMID: 30445887

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundIn accordance with the Theory of Structural Dissociation of the Personality (TSDP), studies of dissociative identity disorder (DID) have documented that two prototypical dissociative subsystems of the personality, the "Emotional Part" (EP) and the "Apparently Normal Part" (ANP), have different biopsychosocial reactions to supraliminal and subliminal trauma-related cues and that these reactions cannot be mimicked by fantasy prone healthy controls nor by actors.MethodsArterial spin labeling perfusion MRI was used to test the hypotheses that ANP and EP in DID have different perfusion patterns in response to rest instructions, and that perfusion is different in actors who were instructed to simulate ANP and EP. In a follow-up study, regional cerebral blood flow of DID patients was compared with the activation pattern of healthy non-simulating controls.ResultsCompared to EP, ANP showed elevated perfusion in bilateral thalamus. Compared to ANP, EP had increased perfusion in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, primary somatosensory cortex, and motor-related areas. Perfusion patterns for simulated ANP and EP were different. Fitting their reported role-play strategies, the actors activated brain structures involved in visual mental imagery and empathizing feelings. The follow-up study demonstrated elevated perfusion in the left temporal lobe in DID patients, whereas non-simulating healthy controls had increased activity in areas which mediate the mental construction of past and future episodic events.ConclusionDID involves dissociative part-dependent resting-state differences. Compared to ANP, EP activated brain structures involved in self-referencing and sensorimotor actions more. Actors had different perfusion patterns compared to genuine ANP and EP. Comparisons of neural activity for individuals with DID and non-DID simulating controls suggest that the resting-state features of ANP and EP in DID are not due to imagination. The findings are consistent with TSDP and inconsistent with the idea that DID is caused by suggestion, fantasy proneness, and role-playing.

Project description:OBJECTIVE: The Theory of Structural Dissociation of the Personality (TSDP) proposes that dissociative identity disorder (DID) patients are fixed in traumatic memories as "Emotional Parts" (EP), but mentally avoid these as "Apparently Normal Parts" of the personality (ANP). We tested the hypotheses that ANP and EP have different biopsychosocial reactions to subliminally presented angry and neutral faces, and that actors instructed and motivated to simulate ANP and EP react differently. METHODS: Women with DID and matched healthy female actors (CON) were as ANP and EP (DIDanp, DIDep, CONanp, CONep) consecutively exposed to masked neutral and angry faces. Their brain activation was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The black-and-white dotted masks preceding and following the faces each had a centered colored dot, but in a different color. Participants were instructed to immediately press a button after a perceived color change. State anxiety was assessed after each run using the STAI-S. Final statistical analyses were conducted on 11 DID patients and 15 controls for differences in neural activity, and 13 DID patients and 15 controls for differences in behavior and psychometric measures. RESULTS: Differences between ANP and EP in DID patients and between DID and CON in the two dissociative parts of the personality were generally larger for neutral than for angry faces. The longest reaction times (RTs) existed for DIDep when exposed to neutral faces. Compared to DIDanp, DIDep was associated with more activation of the parahippocampal gyrus. Following neutral faces and compared to CONep, DIDep had more activation in the brainstem, face-sensitive regions, and motor-related areas. DIDanp showed a decreased activity all over the brain in the neutral and angry face condition. There were neither significant within differences nor significant between group differences in state anxiety. CON was not able to simulate genuine ANP and EP biopsychosocially. CONCLUSIONS: DID patients have dissociative part-dependent biopsychosocial reactions to masked neutral and angry faces. As EP, they are overactivated, and as ANP underactivated. The findings support TSDP. Major clinical implications are discussed.

Project description:BackgroundIndividuals with dissociative identity disorder (DID) have complex symptoms consistent with severe traumatic reactions. Clinicians and forensic assessors are challenged by distinguishing symptom exaggeration and feigning from genuine symptoms among these individuals. This task may be aided by administering validity measures.ObjectiveThis study aimed to document how individuals with DID score on the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS). The second objective was to compare coached DID simulators and healthy controls to DID patients on the SIMS's total score and subscales. The third objective was to examine the utility rates of the SIMS in distinguishing simulated DID from clinically diagnosed DID.MethodWe compared SIMS data gathered from participants from two Dutch sites, one Swiss site and one U.S. site. Sixty-three DID patients were compared to 77 coached DID simulators and 64 healthy controls on the SIMS. A multivariate analysis compared the groups on the SIMS total scores and subscales, and post-hoc Games Howell tests and univariate ANOVAs examined differences between the groups. Utility statistics assessed the accuracy of the SIMS in distinguishing clinical from simulated DID.ResultsDID simulators scored significantly higher than DID individuals and healthy controls on every SIMS subscale as well as the total score. The majority (85.7%) of the individuals with DID scored above the cut-off, which is typically interpreted as indicative of possible symptom exaggeration. DID individuals scored higher than the healthy controls on every subscale except Low Intelligence, even after controlling for dissociation. The subscales and items most frequently endorsed by the DID group are consistent with symptoms associated with complex trauma exposure and dissociative reactions. The SIMS total score had a sensitivity of 96% but an unacceptably low specificity of 14%.ConclusionsThe findings indicate that the instrument is not accurate in assessing potential symptom exaggeration or feigning in DID.

Project description:The negativity bias has been shown in many fields, including in face processing. We assume that this bias stems from the potential threat inlayed in the stimuli (e.g., negative moral behaviors) in previous studies. In the present study, we conducted one behavioral and one event-related potentials (ERPs) experiments to test whether the positivity bias rather than negativity bias will arise when participants process information whose negative aspect involves no threat, i.e., the ability information. In both experiments, participants first completed a valence rating (negative-to-positive) of neutral facial expressions. Further, in the learning period, participants associated the neutral faces with high-ability, low-ability, or control sentences. Finally, participants rated these facial expressions again. Results of the behavioral experiment showed that compared with pre-learning, the expressions of the faces associated with high ability sentences were classified as more positive in the post-learning expression rating task, and the faces associated with low ability sentences were evaluated as more negative. Meanwhile, the change in the high-ability group was greater than that of the low-ability group. The ERP data showed that the faces associated with high-ability sentences elicited a larger early posterior negativity, an ERP component considered to reflect early sensory processing of the emotional stimuli, than the faces associated with control sentences. However, no such effect was found in faces associated with low-ability sentences. To conclude, high ability sentences exerted stronger influence on expression perception than did low ability ones. Thus, we found a positivity bias in this ability-related facial perceptual task. Our findings demonstrate an effect of valenced ability information on face perception, thereby adding to the evidence on the opinion that person-related knowledge can influence face processing. What's more, the positivity bias in non-threatening surroundings increases scope for studies on processing bias.

Project description:Background: Two aetiology models for dissociative identity disorder (DID) have been proposed, namely a childhood Trauma Model and an iatrogenic or Fantasy model. A recent study indicated that sleep disturbances underlie dissociative symptomatology. Objective: Our current study aims to test whether this finding can be replicated in an independent sample and to investigate if this finding still holds after correcting for childhood and adult traumatization. An experimental working memory task is included to investigate how sleep disturbance, traumatization, dissociation, and fantasy proneness impact cognitive functioning. Methods: Three groups of participants were included - individuals with DID, individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and matched healthy controls. Sleep disturbances were measured and compared between the groups along with measures of childhood and adult traumatization, psychoform and somatoform [psychological and somatic] dissociative symptoms, and fantasy proneness. Cognitive capacity was assessed using a working memory task. Results: When controlled for traumatic experiences, sleep disturbances did not predict dissociative symptoms. When controlled for sleep disturbance and fantasy proneness, childhood traumatization did predict dissociative symptoms. Psychoform dissociative symptoms correlated with traumatic experiences more than with fantasy proneness. Working memory performance was similar among the participating groups. Propensity to fantasy did not discriminate individuals with DID and PTSD, and was a weak predictor of dissociative symptoms. Conclusion: Whereas DID and PTSD are associated with sleep disturbances, these features do not statistically predict dissociative symptoms in these disorders when traumatic experiences are taken into account. Fantasy proneness is not excessive in DID and PTSD. Hence, we found no evidence that sleep disturbances, propensity to fantasy and abnormal working memory capacity explain dissociative symptoms in DID and PTSD. In sum, the relationship between sleep and dissociative symptoms disappeared when potentially traumatizing events were controlled for.

Dataset Information

Preliminary Evidence of a Missing Self Bias in Face Perception for Individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Publications

Preliminary Evidence of a Missing Self Bias in Face Perception for Individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure