title: Influence of empathetic pain processing on cognition in schizophrenia.
abstract: Deficits in both empathy and cognition have been reported widely in patients with schizophrenia. However, little is known about how these deficits interact among such patients. In the present study, we used pain portraying pictures preceding a color-word Stroop task to investigate the effect of empathetic pain observation on cognition among patients with schizophrenia. Twenty patients with schizophrenia and twenty healthy controls were included. The control group showed increased Stroop facilitation and decreased interference during the empathetic pain condition compared with the non-empathetic condition. Although patients with schizophrenia exhibited deficits in cognition, they demonstrated a similar empathy effect to controls on Stroop facilitation, but a somewhat larger empathy effect on Stroop interference (a more decreased effect). In particular, the groups did not differ in either automatic or controlled processing during the non-empathetic condition, suggesting general rather than specific cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Together, we interpret our findings in terms of two opposing effects of empathy on cognition in schizophrenia, with possible neuromodulatory mechanism. Whereas prior studies showed empathy to be impaired, our outcomes indicate that at least some components of empathetic pain processing are preserved in such patients.
authors.affiliation: Human Neuroscience Institute, Department of Human Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA. hkesong@cornell.edu.
authors.forename: Kesong
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Marijn
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lijffijt
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Theodore P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Beauchaine
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
authors.forename: Zhiwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology, Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China. shuchangh@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Shuchang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: He
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D057190:Stroop Test; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Empathy; Empathy–cognition interaction; Schizophrenia; Stroop task