title: Processing of spatial-frequency altered faces in schizophrenia: effects of illness phase and duration.
abstract: Low spatial frequency (SF) processing has been shown to be impaired in people with schizophrenia, but it is not clear how this varies with clinical state or illness chronicity. We compared schizophrenia patients (SCZ, n = 34), first episode psychosis patients (FEP, n = 22), and healthy controls (CON, n = 35) on a gender/facial discrimination task. Images were either unaltered (broadband spatial frequency, BSF), or had high or low SF information removed (LSF and HSF conditions, respectively). The task was performed at hospital admission and discharge for patients, and at corresponding time points for controls. Groups were matched on visual acuity. At admission, compared to their BSF performance, each group was significantly worse with low SF stimuli, and most impaired with high SF stimuli. The level of impairment at each SF did not depend on group. At discharge, the SCZ group performed more poorly in the LSF condition than the other groups, and showed the greatest degree of performance decline collapsed over HSF and LSF conditions, although the latter finding was not significant when controlling for visual acuity. Performance did not change significantly over time for any group. HSF processing was strongly related to visual acuity at both time points for all groups. We conclude the following: 1) SF processing abilities in schizophrenia are relatively stable across clinical state; 2) face processing abnormalities in SCZ are not secondary to problems processing specific SFs, but are due to other known difficulties constructing visual representations from degraded information; and 3) the relationship between HSF processing and visual acuity, along with known SCZ- and medication-related acuity reductions, and the elimination of a SCZ-related impairment after controlling for visual acuity in this study, all raise the possibility that some prior findings of impaired perception in SCZ may be secondary to acuity reductions.
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America; Rutgers - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Steven M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Silverstein
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America; Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Brian P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Keane
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Thomas V
authors.initials: TV
authors.lastname: Papathomas
authors.affiliation: University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology and Swanson School of Engineering, Department of Bioengineering, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kira L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Lathrop
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Hristian
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kourtev
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America; Albright College, Psychology Department, Reading, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Keith
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Feigenson
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Matthew W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Roché
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Yushi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Deepthi
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mikkilineni
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America.
authors.forename: Danielle
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Paterno
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013997:Time Factors; D014792:Visual Acuity / Q000502:physiology