Emotions play a key role in our daily life through their control over our thoughts and behaviors. While it is commonly accepted that depressive patients have emotional perception disorders, it is important to know how these disorders affect patients’ sensory perception to develop products to provide them with better support. In this study, we first examined the existence of modifications in the emotional perception of subjects with minor depressive symptoms (MDS, n = 80) compared with healthy controls (HC, n = 80) using a nonverbal method based on pictures to measure projected emotions and personality traits: the Sense'n Feel™ method. The investigated stimuli were two unpleasant and two pleasant odors and one pleasant food product: a madeleine. Second, we investigated the hedonic, familiarity and intensity olfactory perceptions of the subjects using the same stimuli. No significant difference was found in any olfactory qualities between the two groups. Concerning the pleasant olfactory stimuli, however, we did note that the MDS subjects had a significantly lower score for the positive emotion of joy/happiness than the controls. Additionally, the MDS group's attribution of some positive personality traits for the three pleasant stimuli was significantly weaker than that in the HC group. These results could be explained by the affective state of the MDS subjects; they were more anxious and more alexithymic compared with the controls. Further research is needed to validate our study in clinically depressed individuals and to determine whether the modifications of the emotional olfactory perception are due to the disease and/or to neuropsychological alterations.

中文翻译：

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情感状态对感觉和情绪感知的影响：Sense'n Feel™方法的应用。

情绪通过控制思想和行为在我们的日常生活中起着关键作用。尽管人们普遍认为抑郁症患者有情绪感知障碍，但重要的是要知道这些障碍如何影响患者的感觉感知，以开发产品为他们提供更好的支持。在这项研究中，我们首先检查了与轻度抑郁症状（MDS，n  = 80）相比，健康对照者（HC，n = 80）使用基于图片的非语言方法来测量投射的情绪和人格特质：Sense'n Feel™方法。被调查的刺激是两种令人不愉快的气味和两种令人愉快的气味以及一种令人愉悦的食品：玛德琳。其次，我们研究了使用相同刺激对受试者的享乐，熟悉程度和强度嗅觉。两组之间的嗅觉质量均无显着差异。然而，关于愉悦的嗅觉刺激，我们确实注意到MDS受试者的快乐/幸福积极情绪得分明显低于对照组。此外，MDS组对三种愉快刺激的一些积极人格特质的归因显着弱于HC组。这些结果可以用MDS受试者的情感状态来解释。与对照组相比，他们更加焦虑和更具艺术性。需要进一步的研究来验证我们对临床抑郁症患者的研究，并确定情绪嗅觉的改变是否是由于疾病和/或神经心理改变引起的。