title: Predicting the future in schizophrenia: The discrepancy between anticipatory and consummatory pleasure.
abstract: When predicting future emotions we use inaccurate biases which rely on our most salient and recent experiences. In schizophrenia, there appears to be a specific deficit in this anticipatory process which is associated with reduced motivation and engagement. The nature of this deficit and how it differs to the general population is unclear. This study introduces a new task examining the discrepancy between anticipated and experienced pleasure and investigates its potential usefulness to characterise the pleasure deficit in people with schizophrenia. Forty-eight healthy controls and 50 individuals with schizophrenia completed the Components of Pleasure Task (COP) which uses a range of images to generate anticipatory and experiential ratings. Participants also completed measures of mood and symptoms. Individuals with schizophrenia had a larger anticipatory-consummatory discrepancy score. This was due to under-anticipating highly pleasant stimuli and over-anticipating low pleasantness stimuli. People with schizophrenia are blunted compared to controls when anticipating stimuli, considering highly and lowly rated stimuli alike. A greater discrepancy between anticipated and experienced pleasure may contribute to negative symptoms such as poor motivation and social withdrawal. Reducing the discrepancy between experienced and anticipated pleasure may be a target for interventions aiming to reduce negative symptoms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK. Electronic address: clementine.edwards@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Clementine J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK. Electronic address: matteo.cella@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cella
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK. Electronic address: nicholas.tarrier@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tarrier
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College London, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK. Electronic address: til.wykes@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Til
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wykes
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D059031:Anticipation, Psychological; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D057181:Pleasure; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012569:Schizotypal Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Anhedonia; Anticipatory pleasure; Consummatory pleasure; Negative symptoms; Schizophrenia