The signs that someone might struggle to anticipate pleasure

What is it about?

Having difficulties experiencing and anticipating pleasure has been consistently shown to have a negative impact on individuals' mental health. In this study, 100 participants were categorized as having a low or high capacity for experiencing and anticipating pleasure based on their scores on self-report measures. These participants were recorded describing positive memories and positive future events, and their facial, vocal and linguistic expressions during these descriptions were analysed. Having a lower capacity for experiencing pleasure was not associated with any differences in facial, vocal or linguistic features. Having a lower capacity for anticipatory pleasure was linked with decreased facial expression of happiness, mean vocal pitch and amount of speech, as well as increased variations in the pitch and amplitude of speech when describing positive future events.

Featured Image

Photo by Deleece Cook on Unsplash

Photo by Deleece Cook on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Consummatory and anticipatory pleasure have mostly been measured using self-report scales, which are prone to bias and only provide one channel of emotional response. This study demonstrated that digital phenotyping software, which measures participant responses across multiple emotional channels (facial, vocal and linguistic), can assist in distinguishing individuals who have a lower capacity for anticipatory pleasure.

Perspectives

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I think the findings from this study were interesting to me because they provided an indication that digital phenotyping software has the capacity to identify facial and vocal differences in emotive capacities that are consistent with how these differences might present in clinical settings.

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