Discrimination Illusion: A Review of the Studies Concerning Biased Facial
Expression Processing in Substance Abusers
ZENG Ning-ning1 ZHANG Meng2 LI Xin-yu3
1. Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China;
2. Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310028,
China;
3. Institute of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004,
China
Abstract：The concept of “discrimination illusion” has been proposed in the present paper after the authors
systematically reviewed studies concerning the processing of facial emotional expressions in
alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, opiates, and poly-substance
dependents. Here, “discrimination illusion” refers to the phenomenon that substance abusers’
biased processing of negative expressions and its resulting consequences in social adaptation,
which is suggested to be caused by social cognition deficits in substance abusers. This new point
of view could provide a novel research perspective for understanding the activation of drug
abuse behaviors. Moreover, the authors warrant the future researches that emphasize on the
specific emotions, temporal phases, cognitive and neurological mechanisms, as well as trainings
of facial expression processing in order to uncover the underlying mechanism and potential
implication of substance abusers’ negative facial expression bias.
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