Dysfunction in configural face processing in patients with schizophrenia.
BACKGROUND
Face recognition has important implications for patients with schizophrenia, who exhibit poor interpersonal and social skills. Previous reports have suggested that patients with schizophrenia have deficits in their ability to recognize faces, and because face recognition relies heavily on information about the configuration of faces, we hypothesized that patients with schizophrenia would have specific problems in processing configural information.


METHODS
We measured the performance of 20 patients with schizophrenia and 20 normal subjects in a face-discrimination task, using upright and inverted pairs of face photographs that differed in featural or configural information.


RESULTS
The patients with schizophrenia showed disproportionately poorer performance in discriminating configural compared with featural face sets.


CONCLUSIONS
The result suggests that the face-recognition deficit in schizophrenic patients is due to specific impairments in configural processing of faces.
Shin
Yong-Wook
YW
Department of Neurosychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
Na
Myung Hyon
MH
Ha
Tae Hyon
TH
Kang
Do-Hyung
DH
Yoo
So-Young
SY
Kwon
Jun Soo
JS
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index