Emotion recognition in patients with mild cognitive impairment: The role of face processing and emotional intelligence

Background Emotion recognition ability is essential for social cognition, enabling humans to interpret and respond to emotion-related cues. However, so far, it is not known how underlying cognitive deficits, face processing and emotional intelligence are associated with emotion recognition, particularly in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Objective To examine emotion recognition performance in patients with MCI and the associations between emotion recognition, face processing, emotional interference, and emotional intelligence. Methods 60 participants (patients with MCI = 30, healthy controls (HC) = 30), aged 50–86 years (M = 66.8, SD = 8.66), completed the Emotion Composite Task (ECT), Facial Composite Task (FCT), and Emotion Stroop Task. Emotional intelligence (EI) was assessed using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQUE). Results Overall, patients with MCI performed worse on the ECT than healthy controls (β = −0.36, p = 0.207, FDR p = 0.311), although this difference did not reach significance. Emotion-specific analysis showed that anger recognition was particularly impaired in patients with MCI (β = −0.86, p < 0.001). Better face processing ability was associated with better anger recognition (β = 0.28, p < 0.05), and higher EI with better overall emotion recognition (β = 0.62, p < 0.05). Conclusions Although overall emotion recognition performance did not significantly differ between groups, patients with MCI showed selective impairments in recognizing anger. Face processing and emotional intelligence were associated with better emotion recognition, suggesting that patients with MCI who have stronger perceptual and socio-emotional skills preserve their emotion recognition abilities more effectively.