Perception of socially relevant stimuli in schizophrenia.
To examine whether patients with schizophrenia have deficits in the appraisal of socially relevant stimuli, we tested 20 patients and 14 healthy volunteers equated for parental socioeconomic status on recognition of gender stimuli, emotional people stimuli, and emotional scenes. Patients with schizophrenia showed deficits in discrimination of subtle gender differences and in the identification of emotion from human shapes and body motion. Patients showed no impairment on measures of hedonic appraisal of emotional scenes and recognition of emotional expression in human face stimuli. Across tasks, subjects with schizophrenia showed poorer identification of happiness, anger, and fear. The findings point towards circumscribed domains of impaired social cognition in schizophrenia and suggest specific further hypotheses about the neural dysfunction that may underlie them.
University of Iowa, Department of Psychiatry, United States.
Nirav O
NO
Bigelow
Sergio
S
Paradiso
Ralph
R
Adolphs
David J
DJ
Moser
Stephan
S
Arndt
Andrea
A
Heberlein
Peggy
P
Nopoulos
Nancy C
NC
Andreasen
D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003710:Demography; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010045:Outpatients; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric