title: Forming first impressions of others in schizophrenia: impairments in fast processing and in use of spatial frequency information.
abstract: Individuals form first impressions of others all the time, which affects their social functioning. Typical adults form threat impressions in faces with neutral expressions quickly, requiring less than 40 ms. These impressions appear to be mediated by low spatial frequency (LSF) content in the images. Little is known, however, about mechanisms of first impression formation in schizophrenia. The current study investigated how quickly individuals with schizophrenia can form consistent impressions of threat compared with controls and explored the mechanisms involved. Patients and controls were presented intact, LSF- or high spatial frequency (HSF)-filtered faces with durations that varied from 39 to 1703 ms and were asked to rate how threatening each face was on a scale from 1 to 5. In order to assess the speed of impression formation for intact faces, correlations were calculated for ratings made at each duration compared to a reference duration of 1703 ms for each group. Controls demonstrated a significant relation for intact faces presented for 39 ms, whereas patients required 390 ms to demonstrate a significant relation with the reference duration. For controls, LSFs primarily contributed to the formation of consistent threat impressions at 39 ms, whereas patients showed a trend for utilizing both LSF and HSF information to form consistent threat impressions at 390 ms. Results indicate that individuals with schizophrenia require a greater integration time to form a stable "first impression" of threat, which may be related to the need to utilize compensatory mechanisms such as HSF, as well as LSF, information.
authors.affiliation: Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, Bronx, NY, United States.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vakhrusheva
authors.affiliation: Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, Bronx, NY, United States; Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Zemon
authors.affiliation: Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel; Martinos Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, United States. Electronic address: Moshe.bar@biu.ac.il.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bar
authors.affiliation: Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States; Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States.
authors.forename: N G
authors.initials: NG
authors.lastname: Weiskopf
authors.affiliation: Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tremeau
authors.affiliation: Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, United States.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Petkova
authors.affiliation: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY, United States.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States; Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States; Department of Psychology, City University of New York, New York, NY, United States.
authors.forename: I Y
authors.initials: IY
authors.lastname: Abeles
authors.affiliation: Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, United States; Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States; Department of Psychology, City University of New York, New York, NY, United States.
authors.forename: P D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Butler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012559:Schizophrenia; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: First impressions; Schizophrenia; Social cognition; Spatial frequency; Threat; Visual processing