Perception of emotion among schizophrenic patients

Abstract

The relationship of problems in social perception to the social dysfunction of schizophrenic patients has not been adequately addressed. The present study compared the responses of patients diagnosed as schizophrenic and affective disorder and nonpatient subjects on a measure of perception of emotional cues. A measure of general attention/perception was also administered. Schizophrenics exhibited selective deficits in perception of emotional stimuli in relationship to control groups. They differed in their perceptions of negative emotion, but not positive or neutral emotion, in comparison to affective disorder and control subjects. This selective distortion in social perception was apparent even though schizophrenics also performed poorly on the general attentional measure. A number of alternatives are discussed as possible explanations for the specific deviations which schizophrenics exhibited in perceiving negative emotion.