title: Emotion recognition in psychosis: no evidence for an association with real world social functioning.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Patients with psychotic disorders show impairments in the recognition of emotions in other people. These impairments have been associated with poor social functioning as measured by self-report questionnaires, clinical interviews and laboratory-based tests of social skills. The ecological validity of these tests, however, is low. Associations were examined between emotion recognition and daily life social interactions in 50 patients diagnosed with a non-affective psychotic disorder and 67 healthy controls.
  
  
  METHODS
  All participants were assessed with the Degraded Facial Affect Recognition Task (DFAR), a computer test measuring the recognition of emotional facial expressions. Social functioning in daily life was assessed using the Experience Sampling Method (a random time sampling technique) with focus on measures of social context and appraisal of the social situation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Groups differed significantly in the recognition of angry faces, whereas no differences existed for other emotions. There were no associations between emotion recognition and social functioning in daily life and there was no evidence for differential associations in patients as compared to controls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Social functioning, when assessed in an ecologically valid fashion, is not sensitive to variation in the traditional experimental assessment of emotion recognition. Real life measures of functioning should guide research linking the handicaps associated with psychosis to underlying cognitive and emotional dysregulation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Janssens
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lataster
authors.forename: C J P
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Simons
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oorschot
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lardinois
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van Os
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Myin-Germeys
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult