ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the characteristics and influencing factors of methamphetamine dependence adolescents’ emotional faces recognition ability. Methods Eighty-six adolescents methamphet-amine addicts and 85 healthy volunteers were tested by a self-designed questionnaire and an experiment of e-motional faces identification. Results (1)There was no significant correlation between the emotional faces recognition ability of the experimental group with their age,education level and drug time (P>0. 05). (2)The correct number of positive(32. 58 ±8. 56),neutral (32. 76±8. 06),and negative(56. 28±20. 04) emotional faces recognition in the experimental group was significantly lower than that in the control group of positive (35. 64±3. 91),neutral(35. 47±4. 00),and negative(71. 02±8. 62) emotional faces recognition(t=-3. 00,-2. 79,-6. 24,P<0. 05). Meanwhile,the response time of positive(( 401. 32± 175. 13) ms) and negative ((502. 08±194. 42)ms) emotional faces recognition in the experimental group was significantly lower than that in the control group of positive((300. 83±139. 48)ms) and negative((379. 91±197. 30)ms) emotional faces (t=4. 15,4. 08,P<0. 05). Nevertheless,there was no significant difference between the experimental group((400. 90±174. 21) ms) and the control group ((356. 67±156. 70) ms) in the recognition response time of neutral emotional faces (t=1. 75,P>0. 05). Conclusion Methamphetamine dependence impairs the ability of adolescents’ emotional faces recognition,and their positive and negative emotional recognition abili-ty has processing defects. The ability of methamphetamine dependence adolescents to emotional faces recogni- tion is not affected by their age,education level and time of drug uses.