Behavioural Manifestation and Awareness of Emotional Processing Deficits in Individuals with Hypertension: Evidence for Emotional Dampening Hypothesis

Emotional dampening (reduced emotional responsiveness) in response to blood pressure (BP) elevation (in normotensive range) has been noted in explicit processing of visual emotional stimuli. However, it has yet to be explored whether such emotional dampening (ED) occurs in implicit processing of emotions (across different sense modalities) and extends to hypertensive range BP elevation. Similarly, little is known how far the emotional dampening observed at behavioural level corresponds to self-reported perceived emotional deficit. The present study attempts to empirically address these issues by assessing groups of 29 hypertensives and 33 normotensive participants on implicit visual and auditory emotional processing tasks and self report measure of emotional processing deficit. Compared to normotensives, hypertensive individuals showed significant reduction in implicit processing of visual and auditory emotional stimuli. However, such difference was evident only in terms of accuracy and not in speed of emotional processing. Further, hypertensive individuals reported significantly greater emotional processing deficit compared to their normotensive counterparts. Findings imply that emotional dampening in response to elevated blood pressure not only extends to hypertensive range but is a more generalized phenomenon evident at different levels of processing and across different sensory modalities. The self-reported emotional processing deficit in hypertensive individuals implies the presence of awareness of one's own emotional processing difficulties among them.