title: Emotional processing during speech communication and positive symptoms in schizophrenia.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The recognition of emotion is often impaired in patients with schizophrenia. The relationship of this deficit with symptoms of psychosis remains unclear. In the current study, we investigated the relationship between emotional processing and positive psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-eight patients with schizophrenia and 37 healthy participants were included in the study. They were instructed to listen to a set of sentences and judge whether the emotional valence expressed verbally and that expressed by affective prosody were congruous or incongruous.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, the patients with schizophrenia had more inaccurate responses than the healthy participants and the poor performance was prominent when the patients processed affectively negative scenarios. The percentage of accurate responses negatively correlated with the severity of positive symptoms when the scenarios and/or the affective prosody had a negative valence.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patients with schizophrenia appear to have impaired function in the processing of negative verbal information. Impaired processing of negative verbal and prosodic information seems to be associated with positive symptoms in schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.
authors.forename: Fumiaki
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ito
authors.forename: Kazunori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsumoto
authors.forename: Tetsuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miyakoshi
authors.forename: Noriyuki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ohmuro
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uchida
authors.forename: Hiroo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Matsuoka
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: cognition; emotion; positive symptoms; schizophrenia