title: Familiarity and face emotion recognition in patients with schizophrenia.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the emotion recognition in familiar and unknown faces in a sample of schizophrenic patients and healthy controls.
  
  
  METHODS
  Face emotion recognition of 18 outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia (DSM-IVTR) and 18 healthy volunteers was assessed with two Emotion Recognition Tasks using familiar faces and unknown faces. Each subject was accompanied by 4 familiar people (parents, siblings or friends), which were photographed by expressing the 6 Ekman's basic emotions. Face emotion recognition in familiar faces was assessed with this ad hoc instrument. In each case, the patient scored (from 1 to 10) the subjective familiarity and affective valence corresponding to each person.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients with schizophrenia not only showed a deficit in the recognition of emotions on unknown faces (p=.01), but they also showed an even more pronounced deficit on familiar faces (p=.001). Controls had a similar success rate in the unknown faces task (mean: 18 +/- 2.2) and the familiar face task (mean: 17.4 +/- 3). However, patients had a significantly lower score in the familiar faces task (mean: 13.2 +/- 3.8) than in the unknown faces task (mean: 16 +/- 2.4; p<.05). In both tests, the highest number of errors was with emotions of anger and fear. Subjectively, the patient group showed a lower level of familiarity and emotional valence to their respective relatives (p<.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The sense of familiarity may be a factor involved in the face emotion recognition and it may be disturbed in schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Príncipe de Asturias University Hospital, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: guillermo.lahera@uah.es.
authors.forename: Guillermo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lahera
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Herrera
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fernández
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bardón
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: de los Ángeles
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fernández-Liria
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology