Facial Affect Recognition Task Research Articles

Differences in Facial Emotion Recognition between First Episode Psychosis, Borderline Personality Disorder and Healthy Controls.

BackgroundFacial emotion recognition (FER) is essential to guide social functioning and behaviour for interpersonal communication. FER may be altered in severe mental illness such as in psychosis and in borderline personality disorder patients. However, it is unclear if these FER alterations are specifically related to psychosis. Awareness of FER alterations may be useful in clinical settings to improve treatment strategies. The aim of our study was to examine FER in patients with severe mental disorder and their relation with psychotic symptomatology.Materials and MethodsSocio-demographic and clinical variables were collected. Alterations on emotion recognition were assessed in 3 groups: patients with first episode psychosis (FEP) (n = 64), borderline personality patients (BPD) (n = 37) and healthy controls (n = 137), using the Degraded Facial Affect Recognition Task. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, Structured Interview for Schizotypy Revised and Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences scales were used to assess positive psychotic symptoms. WAIS III subtests were used to assess IQ.ResultsKruskal-Wallis analysis showed a significant difference between groups on the FER of neutral faces score between FEP, BPD patients and controls and between FEP patients and controls in angry face recognition. No significant differences were found between groups in the fear or happy conditions. There was a significant difference between groups in the attribution of negative emotion to happy faces. BPD and FEP groups had a much higher tendency to recognize happy faces as negatives. There was no association with the different symptom domains in either group.ConclusionsFEP and BPD patients have problems in recognizing neutral faces more frequently than controls. Moreover, patients tend to over-report negative emotions in recognition of happy faces. Although no relation between psychotic symptoms and FER alterations was found, these deficits could contribute to a patient’s misinterpretations in daily life.

The relationships among psychopathy, empathy, and aggression

IntroductionThe lack of empathy is often described as one of the core characteristics of psychopaths. However, prior studies on cognitive empathy in psychopaths have led to mixed conclusions, with some indicating that psychopaths have no impairments in cognitive empathy.ObjectivesThis study set out to resolve this inconsistency by distinguishing the two factors that constitute the construct of psychopathy: Factor 1 (e.g., emotional callousness, lack of guilt) and Factor 2 (e.g., irresponsible lifestyle, poor behavioral controls).AimsThe main aim of this study was to examine the differential relationship between these two factors and relevant variables including empathy, aggression, satisfaction with life.MethodsSelf-report questionnaires and two online experiments (facial affect recognition task, emotional scenario task) were administered to 306 undergraduate students to collect data about psychopathy, cognitive/affective empathy, aggression, satisfaction with life.ResultsCorrelation analysis revealed that both Factor 1 and Factor 2 had negative correlations with self-reported measures of cognitive/affective empathy, and only Factor 1 emerged as a significant predictor of both kinds of empathy. Aggression also showed a stronger positive correlation with Factor 1 than with Factor 2, regardless of subtypes (instrumental, reactive, relational, overt aggression). On the other hand, satisfaction with life was more negatively correlated with Factor 2 than Factor 1, and regression analysis revealed that only Factor 2 was a significant predictor.ConclusionsThis study showed Factor 1 is more important than Factor 2 in explaining both empathy and aggression in psychopath, while satisfaction with life is better explained by Factor 2 than by Factor 1.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Substance use outcomes of girls with ADHD in a 10-year follow-up of a prospective longitudinal study

Methods: Healthy cocaine smokers (≥2×/week; use for ≥20 years), aged 50–60, completed a three-day inpatient stay to ensure abstinence before undergoing an fMRI scan including social reward and threat tasks, and a behavioral facial affect recognition task. Participants and a friend/relative provided an assessment of the participant’s daily social function. Demographically matched controls also completed these assessments. Data were compared with t-tests. Results:Data collection is ongoing. To date, 21 cocaine smokers (17M; 4F; all AA) and 13 controls (10M; 3F; all AA) have participated. Initial analyses indicate that cocaine smokers less accurately identified facial sadness than did controls (p=0.04), with no difference in other emotions. Cocaine users also experienced more daily social problems, as indicated by both self (p=0.001) and peer (p=0.02) report. fMRI data are not yet available. Conclusions: Results to date suggest that aging cocaine users have lower social cognition andmore problems in daily social function than non-users. Deficits in social processingmay contribute to functional difficulties, problems accessing relationships as alternative rewards, and reduced success in psychotherapy. Further characterization of social processing difficulties in cocaine users may lead to development of more targeted interventions. Financial support: Supported byNIDA (DA030540;DA034877).

Neurobiological mechanisms associated with facial affect recognition deficits after traumatic brain injury.

The neurobiological mechanisms that underlie facial affect recognition deficits after traumatic brain injury (TBI) have not yet been identified. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), study aims were to 1) determine if there are differences in brain activation during facial affect processing in people with TBI who have facial affect recognition impairments (TBI-I) relative to people with TBI and healthy controls who do not have facial affect recognition impairments (TBI-N and HC, respectively); and 2) identify relationships between neural activity and facial affect recognition performance. A facial affect recognition screening task performed outside the scanner was used to determine group classification; TBI patients who performed greater than one standard deviation below normal performance scores were classified as TBI-I, while TBI patients with normal scores were classified as TBI-N. An fMRI facial recognition paradigm was then performed within the 3T environment. Results from 35 participants are reported (TBI-I = 11, TBI-N = 12, and HC = 12). For the fMRI task, TBI-I and TBI-N groups scored significantly lower than the HC group. Blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals for facial affect recognition compared to a baseline condition of viewing a scrambled face, revealed lower neural activation in the right fusiform gyrus (FG) in the TBI-I group than the HC group. Right fusiform gyrus activity correlated with accuracy on the facial affect recognition tasks (both within and outside the scanner). Decreased FG activity suggests facial affect recognition deficits after TBI may be the result of impaired holistic face processing. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed.

Working Memory, Jumping to Conclusions and Emotion Recognition: a Possible Link in First Episode Psychosis (Fep)

Introduction A large body of literature has demonstrated that people affected by psychotic disorders show deficits in working memory, in Emotion Recognition (ER) and in data-gathering to reach a decision (Jumping To Conclusions – JTC). Aims To investigate a possible correlation between working memory, JTC and ER in FEP. Methods 41 patients and 89 healthy controls completed assessments of working memory using WAIS shortened version, JTC using the 60:40 Beads Task and ER using Degraded Facial Affect Recognition Task. Results According to the literature, cases had poorer performance in working memory tasks (Digit Span: μ7,72 [ds=2,98] vs μ10,14 [ds=3,10], U=865,00, p=0,00; Digit Symbol: μ5,36 [ds=2,43] vs μ10,05 [ds=3,10], U=455,50, p=0,00; Arithmetic: μ5,46 [ds=2,76] vs μ8,74 [ds=3,24], U=865,50, p=0,00; Block Design: μ4,82 [ds=2,72] vs μ7,60 [ds=3,18], U=912,00, p=0,00), in Beads Task (81,6% vs 51,1%, χ 2 =10,27, p=0,001, μ2,53 [ds=3,57] vs μ4,23 [ds=4,77], U=1171,00, p=0,006) and in DFAR (total errors: μ21,62 [ds=7,43] vs μ16,58 [ds=8,69], U=554,50, p=0,002). Furthermore working memory tasks in cases group correlated significantly with JTC (Digit Span: r rho =0,276, p=0,003; Digit Symbol: r rho =0,275, p=0,002; Arithmetic: r rho =0,265, p=0,003; Block Design: r rho =0,292, p=0,001), but only Digit Span with ER (r rho =-0,239; p=0,021). In addition, we found that JTC and ER were significantly associated (r rho =-0,281; p=0,004). Conclusions Data show that working memory impairments, JTC style and dysfunctions in the facial emotions recognition are phenomena strongly correlated in the group of patients. Preliminary results suggest the importance of early rehabilitation as the impairments detected may lead to difficulties in social and relational adaptation in psychotic patients.

Relation between facial affect recognition and configural face processing in antipsychotic-free schizophrenia.

Deficit in facial affect recognition is a well-documented impairment in schizophrenia, closely connected to social outcome. This deficit could be related to psychopathology, but also to a broader dysfunction in processing facial information. In addition, patients with schizophrenia inadequately use configural information-a type of processing that relies on spatial relationships between facial features. To date, no study has specifically examined the link between symptoms and misuse of configural information in the deficit in facial affect recognition. Unmedicated schizophrenia patients (n = 30) and matched healthy controls (n = 30) performed a facial affect recognition task and a face inversion task, which tests aptitude to rely on configural information. In patients, regressions were carried out between facial affect recognition, symptom dimensions and inversion effect. Patients, compared with controls, showed a deficit in facial affect recognition and a lower inversion effect. Negative symptoms and lower inversion effect could account for 41.2% of the variance in facial affect recognition. This study confirms the presence of a deficit in facial affect recognition, and also of dysfunctional manipulation in configural information in antipsychotic-free patients. Negative symptoms and poor processing of configural information explained a substantial part of the deficient recognition of facial affect. We speculate that this deficit may be caused by several factors, among which independently stand psychopathology and failure in correctly manipulating configural information.

Neuroticism and facial emotion recognition in healthy adults.

The aim of the present study was to examine whether healthy individuals with higher levels of neuroticism, a robust independent predictor of psychopathology, exhibit altered facial emotion recognition performance. Facial emotion recognition accuracy was investigated in 104 healthy adults using the Degraded Facial Affect Recognition Task (DFAR). Participants' degree of neuroticism was estimated using neuroticism scales extracted from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. A significant negative correlation between the degree of neuroticism and the percentage of correct answers on DFAR was found only for happy facial expression (significant after applying Bonferroni correction). Altered sensitivity to the emotional context represents a useful and easy way to obtain cognitive phenotype that correlates strongly with inter-individual variations in neuroticism linked to stress vulnerability and subsequent psychopathology. Present findings could have implication in early intervention strategies and staging models in psychiatry.

Emotion processing in schizophrenia is state and trait dependent

BackgroundSubstantial evidence exists about emotion processing (EP) impairments in schizophrenia patients. However, whether these deficits are present primarily during psychosis (i.e., state dependent) or an integral part of the disorder (i.e., trait dependent) remains unclear. MethodsEP was assessed with the degraded facial affect recognition task in schizophrenia patients (N=521) and healthy controls (N=312) at baseline (T1) and after a three year follow-up (T2). In schizophrenia patients symptomatic remission was assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) remission tool. Patients were divided into four groups: remission T1 and remission T2 (RR); remission T1 and non-remission T2 (RN); non-remission T1 and non-remission T2 (NN) and non-remission T1 and remission T2 (NR). Factorial repeated measures ANCOVA was used to compare EP performance over time between groups. Age, gender and general cognition were included as covariates. ResultsSchizophrenia patients performed worse than healthy controls on EP at T1 (p=0.001). The patients that were in symptomatic remission at both time points (the RR group) performed worse than the healthy controls at T2 (p<0.001). Significant group×time interactions were found between RR and RN (p=0.001), and between NR and RN (p=0.04), indicating a differential EP performance over time. No group×time interaction was found between NN and NR. ConclusionThe results show relatively poor EP performance in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls. EP performance in schizophrenia patients was associated with symptomatic remission. The results provide support for the hypothesis that EP deficits in schizophrenia are both state and trait dependent.

Acute effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol and their combination on facial emotion recognition: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in cannabis users

Acute administration of the primary psychoactive constituent of cannabis, Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), impairs human facial affect recognition, implicating the endocannabinoid system in emotional processing. Another main constituent of cannabis, cannabidiol (CBD), has seemingly opposite functional effects on the brain. This study aimed to determine the effects of THC and CBD, both alone and in combination on emotional facial affect recognition. 48 volunteers, selected for high and low frequency of cannabis use and schizotypy, were administered, THC (8mg), CBD (16mg), THC+CBD (8mg+16mg) and placebo, by inhalation, in a 4-way, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover design. They completed an emotional facial affect recognition task including fearful, angry, happy, sad, surprise and disgust faces varying in intensity from 20% to 100%. A visual analogue scale (VAS) of feeling ‘stoned’ was also completed. In comparison to placebo, CBD improved emotional facial affect recognition at 60% emotional intensity; THC was detrimental to the recognition of ambiguous faces of 40% intensity. The combination of THC+CBD produced no impairment. Relative to placebo, both THC alone and combined THC+CBD equally increased feelings of being ‘stoned’. CBD did not influence feelings of ‘stoned’. No effects of frequency of use or schizotypy were found. In conclusion, CBD improves recognition of emotional facial affect and attenuates the impairment induced by THC. This is the first human study examining the effects of different cannabinoids on emotional processing. It provides preliminary evidence that different pharmacological agents acting upon the endocannabinoid system can both improve and impair recognition of emotional faces.

Effects of Training of Affect Recognition on the recognition and visual exploration of emotional faces in schizophrenia

BackgroundSchizophrenia patients have impairments in facial affect recognition and display scanpath abnormalities during the visual exploration of faces. These abnormalities are characterized by fewer fixations on salient feature areas and longer fixation durations. The present study investigated whether social–cognitive remediation not only improves performance in facial affect recognition but also normalizes patients' gaze behavior while looking at faces. MethodsWithin a 2×2-design (group×time), 16 schizophrenia patients and 16 healthy controls performed a facial affect recognition task with concomitant infrared oculography at baseline (T0) and after six weeks (T1). Between the measurements, patients completed the Training of Affect Recognition (TAR) program. The influence of the training on facial affect recognition (percent of correct answers) and gaze behavior (number and mean duration of fixations into salient or non-salient facial areas) was assessed. ResultsIn line with former studies, at baseline patients showed poorer facial affect recognition than controls and aberrant scanpaths, and after TAR facial affect recognition was improved. Concomitant with improvements in performance, the number of fixations in feature areas (‘mouth’) increased while fixations in non-feature areas (‘white space’) decreased. However, the change in fixation behavior did not correlate with the improvement in performance. ConclusionsAfter TAR, patients pay more attention to facial areas that contain information about a displayed emotion. Although this may contribute to the improved performance, the lack of a statistical correlation implies that this factor is not sufficient to explain the underlying mechanism of the treatment effect.

Facial affect recognition linked to damage in specific white matter tracts in traumatic brain injury

Emotional processing deficits have recently been identified in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI), specifically in the domain of facial affect recognition. However, the neural networks underlying these impairments have yet to be identified. In the current study, 42 individuals with moderate to severe TBI and 23 healthy controls performed a task of facial affect recognition (Facial Emotion Identification Test (FEIT)) in order to assess their ability to identify and discriminate six emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, shame, and fear. These individuals also underwent structural neuroimaging including diffusion tensor imaging to examine white matter (WM) integrity. Correlational analyses were performed to determine where in the brain WM damage was associated with performance on the facial affect recognition task. Reduced performance on the FEIT was associated with reduced WM integrity (fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, axial diffusivity, and radial diffusivity) in the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and inferior-fronto-occipital fasciculus in individuals with TBI. Poor performance on the task was additionally associated with reduced gray matter (GM) volume in lingual gyrus and parahippocampal gyrus. The results implicate a pattern of WM and GM damage in TBI that may play a role in emotional processing impairments.

Genetic modulation of the response bias towards facial displays of anger and happiness

Investigating genetic modulation of emotion processing may contribute to the understanding of heritable mechanisms of emotional disorders. The aim of the present study was to test the effects of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) val158met and serotonin-transporter-linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) polymorphisms on facial emotion processing in healthy individuals. Two hundred and seventy five (167 female) participants were asked to complete a computerized facial affect recognition task, which involved four experimental conditions, each containing one type of emotional face (fearful, angry, sad or happy) intermixed with neutral faces. Participants were asked to indicate whether the face displayed an emotion or was neutral. The COMT-val158met and 5-HTTLPR polymorphisms were genotyped. Met homozygotes (COMT) showed a stronger bias to perceive neutral faces as expressions of anger, compared with val homozygotes. However, the S-homozygotes (5-HTTLPR) showed a reduced bias to perceive neutral faces as expressions of happiness, compared to L-homozygotes. No interaction between 5-HTTLPR and COMT was found. These results add to the knowledge of individual differences in social cognition that are modulated via serotonergic and dopaminergic systems. This potentially could contribute to the understanding of the mechanisms of susceptibility to emotional disorders.

The effects of context on facial affect recognition

In a sample of 325 college students, we examined how context influences judgments of facial expressions of emotion, using a newly developed facial affect recognition task in which emotional faces are superimposed upon emotional and neutral contexts. This research used a larger sample size than previous studies, included more emotions, varied the intensity level of the expressed emotion to avoid potential ceiling effects from very easy recognition, did not explicitly direct attention to the context, and aimed to understand how recognition is influenced by non-facial information, both situationally-relevant and situationally-irrelevant. Both accuracy and RT varied as a function of context. For all facial expressions of emotion other than happiness, accuracy increased when the emotion of the face and context matched, and decreased when they mismatched. For all emotions, participants responded faster when the emotion of the face and image matched and slower when they mismatched. Results suggest that the judgment of the facial expression is itself influenced by the contextual information instead of both being judged independently and then combined. Additionally, the results have implications for developing models of facial affect recognition and indicate that there are factors other than the face that can influence facial affect recognition judgments.

Perceptive Biases in Major Depressive Episode

IntroductionAlterations in emotional processing occur during a major depressive episode (MDE), and olfaction and facial expressions have implications in emotional and social interactions. To gain a better understanding of these processes, we characterized the perceptive sensorial biases, potential links, and potential remission after antidepressant treatment of MDE.MethodsWe recruited 22 patients with acute MDE, both before and after three months of antidepressant treatment, and 41 healthy volunteers matched by age and smoking status. The participants underwent a clinical assessment (Mini International Neuropsychiatry Interview, Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Physical and Social Anhedonia scales, Pleasure-Displeasure Scale), an olfactory evaluation (hedonic aspect, familiarity and emotional impact of odors), and a computerized Facial Affect Recognition task.ResultsMDE was associated with an olfactory bias concerning hedonic and emotional aspects, including negative olfactory alliesthesia (unpleasant odorants perceived as more unpleasant), facial emotion expression recognition (happy facial expressions), and in part olfactory anhedonia (pleasant odorants perceived as less pleasant). In addition, the results revealed that these impairments represent state markers of MDE, suggesting that the patients recovered the same sensory processing as healthy subjects after antidepressant treatment.DiscussionThis study demonstrated that MDE is associated with negative biases toward olfactory perception and the recognition of facial emotional expressions. The link between these two sensory parameters suggests common underlying processes.

Assessing the Utility of a Virtual Environment for Enhancing Facial Affect Recognition in Adolescents with Autism

Teenagers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and age-matched controls participated in a dynamic facial affect recognition task within a virtual reality (VR) environment. Participants identified the emotion of a facial expression displayed at varied levels of intensity by a computer generated avatar. The system assessed performance (i.e., accuracy, confidence ratings, response latency, and stimulus discrimination) as well as how participants used their gaze to process facial information using an eye tracker. Participants in both groups were similarly accurate at basic facial affect recognition at varied levels of intensity. Despite similar performance characteristics, ASD participants endorsed lower confidence in their responses and substantial variation in gaze patterns in absence of perceptual discrimination deficits. These results add support to the hypothesis that deficits in emotion and face recognition for individuals with ASD are related to fundamental differences in information processing. We discuss implications of this finding in a VR environment with regards to potential future applications and paradigms targeting not just enhanced performance, but enhanced social information processing within intelligent systems capable of adaptation to individual processing differences.

Changing facial affect recognition in schizophrenia: effects of training on brain dynamics.

Deficits in social cognition including facial affect recognition and their detrimental effects on functional outcome are well established in schizophrenia. Structured training can have substantial effects on social cognitive measures including facial affect recognition. Elucidating training effects on cortical mechanisms involved in facial affect recognition may identify causes of dysfunctional facial affect recognition in schizophrenia and foster remediation strategies. In the present study, 57 schizophrenia patients were randomly assigned to (a) computer-based facial affect training that focused on affect discrimination and working memory in 20 daily 1-hour sessions, (b) similarly intense, targeted cognitive training on auditory-verbal discrimination and working memory, or (c) treatment as usual. Neuromagnetic activity was measured before and after training during a dynamic facial affect recognition task (5 s videos showing human faces gradually changing from neutral to fear or to happy expressions). Effects on 10–13 Hz (alpha) power during the transition from neutral to emotional expressions were assessed via MEG based on previous findings that alpha power increase is related to facial affect recognition and is smaller in schizophrenia than in healthy subjects. Targeted affect training improved overt performance on the training tasks. Moreover, alpha power increase during the dynamic facial affect recognition task was larger after affect training than after treatment-as-usual, though similar to that after targeted perceptual–cognitive training, indicating somewhat nonspecific benefits. Alpha power modulation was unrelated to general neuropsychological test performance, which improved in all groups. Results suggest that specific neural processes supporting facial affect recognition, evident in oscillatory phenomena, are modifiable. This should be considered when developing remediation strategies targeting social cognition in schizophrenia.

Functional connectivity of negative emotional processing in adolescent depression

BackgroundThe subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) and its connected circuitry have been heavily implicated in emotional functioning in adolescent-onset major depressive disorder (MDD). While several recent studies have examined sgACC functional connectivity (FC) in depressed youth at rest, no studies to date have investigated sgACC FC in adolescent depression during negative emotional processing. MethodsNineteen medication-naïve adolescents with MDD and 19 matched healthy controls (HCL) performed an implicit fear facial affect recognition task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We defined seeds in bilateral sgACC and assessed FC using the psychophysiological interaction method. We also applied cognitive behavioral modeling to estimate group differences in perceptual sensitivity in this task. Finally, we correlated connectivity strength with clinical data and perceptual sensitivity. ResultsDepressed adolescents showed increased sgACC-amygdala FC and decreased sgACC-fusiform gyrus, sgACC-precuneus, sgACC-insula, and sgACC-middle frontal gyrus FC compared to HCL (p<0.05, corrected). Among the MDD, sgACC-precuneus FC negatively correlated with depression severity (p<0.05, corrected). Lastly, MDD adolescents exhibited poorer perceptual sensitivity in the task than HCL, and individual differences in perceptual sensitivity significantly correlated with sgACC FC and depression scores (p<0.05, corrected). LimitationsSubjects were clinically homogenous, possibly limiting generalizability of the findings. ConclusionsAdolescent depression is associated with biased processing of negative stimuli that may be driven by sgACC dysregulation and may possibly lead to an imbalance among intrinsic functional brain networks. This work also establishes the use of combining neuroimaging and cognitive behavioral modeling methods to investigate cognitive and neural differences between psychiatric and healthy populations.

Inferring Emotion in Social Stories by People with Traumatic Brain Injury

1) Compare performance of people with TBI to a normative sample on an assessment task designed to measure emotion inference ability (EIST); 2) Determine the relationship between facial affect recognition and emotion inference abilities for people with TBI. Quasi-experimental design. The EIST consists of social stories relevant to adults. Participants need to use available contextual language cues to indicate how characters in the stories were feeling. Community clinics in several sites. 177 participants with moderate to severe TBI; 40 participants without TBI. Participants with TBI had to demonstrate adequate language comprehension on the Discourse Comprehension Test (DCT) to participate. Not applicable 1) Emotion Inference in Stories Test (EIST); Facial affect recognition (DANVA2). Participants with TBI scored significantly lower than the normative group on the EIST, F(1, 214)=47.49, p < .001. Examining our TBI sample only, facial affect recognition was significantly correlated with emotional inference from stories, r=.40, p < .001 – people who had lower scores on the facial affect recognition task tended to also have more difficulty on the EIST task. Despite adequate discourse comprehension abilities, people with TBI had significant difficulty using contextual language cues to infer the emotions of characters in the social stories. Performance was associated with facial affect recognition, suggesting there is overlap in skills needed to infer emotions from faces and contextual language. Although further development is needed, the results suggest that the EIST task is a feasible tool for identifying emotion inference difficulties in people with TBI.

Emotion recognition in psychosis: No evidence for an association with real world social functioning

BackgroundPatients with psychotic disorders show impairments in the recognition of emotions in other people. These impairments have been associated with poor social functioning as measured by self-report questionnaires, clinical interviews and laboratory-based tests of social skills. The ecological validity of these tests, however, is low. Associations were examined between emotion recognition and daily life social interactions in 50 patients diagnosed with a non-affective psychotic disorder and 67 healthy controls. MethodsAll participants were assessed with the Degraded Facial Affect Recognition Task (DFAR), a computer test measuring the recognition of emotional facial expressions. Social functioning in daily life was assessed using the Experience Sampling Method (a random time sampling technique) with focus on measures of social context and appraisal of the social situation. ResultsGroups differed significantly in the recognition of angry faces, whereas no differences existed for other emotions. There were no associations between emotion recognition and social functioning in daily life and there was no evidence for differential associations in patients as compared to controls. DiscussionSocial functioning, when assessed in an ecologically valid fashion, is not sensitive to variation in the traditional experimental assessment of emotion recognition. Real life measures of functioning should guide research linking the handicaps associated with psychosis to underlying cognitive and emotional dysregulation.

Effects of nicotine on social cognition, social competence and self-reported stress in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls

More than 80 % of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia are nicotine-dependent. Self-medication of cognitive deficits and an increased vulnerability to stress are discussed as promoting factors for the development of nicotine dependence. However, the effects of nicotine on social cognition and subjective stress responses in schizophrenia are largely unexplored. A 2 × 2-factorial design (drug × group) was used to investigate the effects of nicotine versus placebo in smoking schizophrenia patients and healthy controls after 24 h of abstinence from smoking. Participants performed a facial affect recognition task and a semi-standardized role-play task, after which social competence and self-reported stress during social interaction were assessed. Data analysis revealed no significant group differences in the facial affect recognition task. During social interaction, healthy controls showed more non-verbal expressions and a lower subjective stress level than schizophrenia patients. There were no significant effects of nicotine in terms of an enhanced recognition of facial affect, more expressive behaviour or reduced subjective stress during social interaction. While schizophrenia patients unexpectedly recognized facial affect not significantly worse than healthy controls, the observed group differences in subjective stress and non-verbal expression during social interaction in the role-play situation are in line with previous findings. Contrary to expectations derived from the self-medication hypothesis, nicotine showed no significant effects on the dependent variables, perhaps because of the dosage used and the delay between the administration of nicotine and the performance of the role-play.