title: Specific vulnerability of face perception to noise: a similar effect in schizophrenia patients and healthy individuals.
abstract: Face perception plays a foundational role in the social world. This perceptual ability is deficient in schizophrenia. A noise-filtering mechanism is essential for perceptual processing. It remains unclear as to whether a specific noise-filtering mechanism is implicated in the face perception problem or a general noise-filtering mechanism is involved which also mediates non-face visual perception problems associated with this psychiatric disorder. This study examined and compared the effects of external noise on the performance of face discrimination and car discrimination in schizophrenia patients (n=25) and healthy controls (n=27). Superimposing the external visual noise on face or car stimuli elevated perceptual thresholds (i.e. degraded performance levels) for both face and car discrimination. However, the effect of noise was significantly larger on face than on car discrimination, both in patients and controls. This pattern of results suggests specific vulnerability of face processing to noise in healthy individuals and those with schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: McLean Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Centre Building, 115 Mill Street, Belmont, MA 02478, USA. Electronic address: ychen@mclean.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Global Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: McBain
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Norton
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009622:Noise; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012938:Social Perception
keywords: Cognition; Face recognition; Noisy; Schizophrenic; Vision; Visual object