Section of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, Neuroscience and Emotion, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK, and Department of Psychiatry, Lublin University Medical School, Poland
Section of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, Division of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK
Department of Psychiatry, Lublin University Medical School, Poland
Section of Neuroscience and Emotion, Division of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK
Correspondence: Professor Mary Phillips, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychological Medicine, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF. E-mail: m.phillips{at}iop.kcl.ac.uk
Declaration of interest None. K.K.-P. was funded by the Wellcome Trust.
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ABSTRACT |
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Aims To examine the nature of emotion recognition abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia at different stages of illness.
Method We examined the performance of 50 in-patients with early-stage schizophrenia, 50 with chronic schizophrenia and 50 healthy controls on the Benton Facial Recognition Test, Facial Emotion Recognition Test and Voice Emotion Recognition Test.
Results Patients with chronic schizophrenia were significantly more impaired than other groups on the emotional tasks, even after controlling for impairments in non-emotional stimuli. Individual emotion recognition accuracy for the two sensory modalities was not significantly positively correlated for either group with schizophrenia.
Conclusions Emotion recognition deficits in schizophrenia are trait features of the disorder and increase with illness duration.
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INTRODUCTION |
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METHOD |
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The 30-item Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS; Kay et al, 1987) was administered to all patients by a trained rater (K. K.-P.) at the time of recruitment (Table 1). Controls were 50 healthy individuals (24 male; mean age=36.8 years (s.d.=13.4)) with no history of psychiatric illness recruited from the non-professional staff at Lublin University Medical School and Lublin Psychiatric Hospital.
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All participants were right-handed (Annett, 1970). Exclusion criteria included the presence of a neurological disorder (e.g. epilepsy, dementia), habitual drug or alcohol misuse and cognitive impairment (a minimum score <24 out of 30 on the Mini-Mental State Examination; Folstein et al, 1975). Those who had difficulties with vision (including poor acuity and lack of correction) or hearing (threshold greater than 35 dB at any frequency using a free-field voice test; Browning, 1998) were also excluded. Informed consent was obtained prior to participation in the study. Approval for the study was obtained from the ethics committee of the Psychiatry Department of Lublin University Medical School. Six patients with schizophrenia who volunteered to take part in the study were not included in the final sample because either they were unable to complete the full set of tests owing to akathisia (three) or agitation (one) or they were discharged before completing the three experimental sessions (two).
Procedures
All participants undertook three facial recognition tasks and an emotion
prosody task on three separate occasions. Individuals rated their mood at the
time of testing on a 10 cm scale ranging from most depressed
ever on the extreme left (scoring 0) to most happy ever
on the right (scoring 100). The midpoint was not indicated on the scale
(David, 1989).
Facial Emotion Recognition Test
The Facial Emotion Recognition Test (FERT) consists of a set of 36
photographs of human emotional faces standardised and
cross-validated on an independent group of healthy volunteers. These
photographs were presented in slide form on the screen for approximately 10 s
each, with an interval of 10 s between photographs. The projector was
positioned 2 m away from the participant. Before this test, participants were
provided with a written list and definitions of nine fundamental emotions:
interest/excitement, enjoyment/joy, surprise/startle, distress/anguish,
disgust, contempt, anger/rage, shame/humiliation, fear/terror, and were asked
to study the names and definitions. After each slide participants selected the
one emotion from the list that best described the photograph and wrote the
number of this photograph in the appropriate space under the defined emotion
category (Izard, 1971). The
order of the items in both emotion facial tasks was randomised across
participants.
Benton Facial Recognition Test
The Benton Facial Recognition Test (BFRT) is a standardised objective
procedure for the assessment of the ability to identify and discriminate
photographs of unfamiliar, non-emotional human faces. The long version of the
test, comprising 54 response items, was employed in this study
(Benton et al,
1994).
Voice Emotion Recognition Test
In the Voice Emotion Recognition Test (VERT) participants were presented
with a series of five semantically neutral sentences (e.g. In winter
there are short days and long nights, They will go first, the
others will follow them).
Each sentence was spoken aloud by a professional male actor in such a
manner as to convey one of the six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear,
anger, surprise and disgust, in addition to a neutral tone of voice.
Thirty-five sentences were recorded, digitised and normalised for average
amplitude in a recording studio. Each of five sentences was presented in the
six emotional and neutral states in a randomised order (interstimulus
interval=7 s; total time=20 min). Participants listened to each sentence then
circled on an answer sheet which of the six emotions or neutral state best
described the speakers tone of voice. The presentation order of all 35
sentences was randomised across participants. Internal consistency was
determined on a sample of 101 students (48 males; mean age=34.2 (s.d.=3.2)
years) on which the test was first validated (Cronbachs =0.614).
Retest was performed after 3 days under the same experimental conditions;
testretest reliability was 0.96
(Kucharska-Pietura et al,
2003).
Analyses
The emotion items were grouped into two valence categories. Happiness
(enjoyment), interest and surprise were categorised as positive
and sadness (distress), anger, fear, shame, contempt and disgust as
negative for both facial and vocal stimuli
(Izard, 1971). The mean
recognition accuracy (percentage correct) was computed for each valence
category for each stimulus type for each group of participants. A
repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to determine the
main effects of group, emotion category and individual emotion, and
interactions between these factors, on both facial and vocal tasks. Post hoc
Tukey tests were then employed to examine specific differences in performance
between groups. The influence of independent variables (e.g. age, education
and current mood) on the performance of the perception tasks was controlled
via analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs). Finally, Pearson correlations were
performed between mean accuracy scores and clinical variables (e.g. PANSS
score, neuroleptic dose, number of admissions).
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RESULTS |
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Benton Facial Recognition Test
Analysis of variance revealed a main effect of group on performance on this
task (F=16.85; d.f.=2,147; P<0.001). Patients in later
stages of schizophrenia were less accurate than those in the early stages of
illness (mean difference=4.63; P<0.05) and healthy controls (mean
difference=10.18; P<0.001); patients in the early stages of
schizophrenia were more impaired than healthy controls (mean difference=5.55;
P<0.01; Table
1).
Analysis of covariance (mean score as dependent variable) were carried out with age, education and current mood as covariates. The effect of group upon performance on this test remained highly significant (F=16.17; d.f.=2,15; P<0.001) after controlling for these covariates. Years of education, current mood, severity of illness, neuroleptic dose, duration of illness and number of prior admissions did not correlate significantly with mean BFRT score in patients. Performance of males and females did not differ significantly on this test in any of the groups.
Facial Emotion Recognition Test
The effect of group
A significant main effect of group was found for performance on the FERT
(F=51.34; d.f.=2,147; P<0.001). Patients in later stages
of schizophrenia demonstrated a significantly greater impairment in their
recognition of facial emotions compared with those in the early stages of
illness (mean difference=8.33; P<0.001) and healthy controls (mean
difference=21.74; P<0.001). A significantly greater impairment was
found in patients in the early stages of schizophrenia compared with healthy
controls (mean difference=13.41; P<0.001;
Table 2).
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The effect of valence
Mean recognition accuracy was computed for both valence categories
(positive and negative) for the FERT. There was a main effect of valence for
recognition (F=144.93; d.f.=1,147; P<0.001), with mean
accuracy scores higher for positive emotions
(Table 2).
Individual emotions
Over all participants, there was a significant main effect for expression
on the recognition task (F=132.37; d.f.=8,140; P<0.001).
There was a significant interaction between group and facial expression on the
recognition task (F=2.62; d.f.=16,280; P<0.01).
Taken together, these findings indicated that patients in the early and later stages of schizophrenia were more impaired on the FERT for both positive and negative expressions than healthy controls, and that those with chronic schizophrenia were generally more impaired than those in the early stages of illness (Table 2).
BFRT performance, clinical and demographic variables as covariates and gender effect
Analyses of covariance were carried out to determine whether in patients
with schizophrenia the impairment on the FERT occurred independently of the
impairment on the BFRT, and with clinical and demographic variables (age,
current mood and years of education) as covariates. The main effect of group
remained highly significant even after controlling for variables
(F=32.77; d.f.=2,149; P<0.001), for the recognition of
positive (F=21.40; d.f.=2,149; P<0.001) and negative
(F=24.72; d.f.=2,149; P<0.001) emotions.
There were no significant correlations between PANSS score, illness course, or neuroleptic dose and performance on the FERT in either patient group.
After covarying for the above factors, univariate analysis of variance was performed to determine the effect of gender upon performance on the FERT. This revealed a main effect of gender on the overall performance on the FERT (F=15.44; d.f.=1,149; P<0.001). Overall, females were more accurate than males on the FERT (t=3.74; d.f.=148; P<0.001). There were also t-test gender differences among patients in the early stages of schizophrenia and healthy volunteers, but not among those with chronic schizophrenia, with females in the early stages of illness and female controls more accurate on the test than the males in each group (t=2.12; d.f.=48; P<0.05 and t=6.49; d.f.=48; P<0.001).
Voice Emotion Recognition Test
Effect of group
One-way ANOVA revealed a main effect of group (F=108.77;
d.f.=2,147; P<0.001) on the total performance on the VERT.
Patients with chronic schizophrenia were significantly more impaired than patients in the early stages of illness (mean difference=12.62; P<0.001), and both patient groups were significantly more impaired than healthy controls (mean difference>27.94; P<0.001 for both comparisons) on this task (Table 3; Fig. 1).
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The effect of valence
There was a main effect of valence on the task (F=157.67;
d.f.=1,147; P<0.001), with mean accuracy scores ordered as
positive and negative vocal expressions
(Table 3;
Fig. 1). There was a
significant group-by-valence interaction (F=21.64; d.f.=2,147;
P<0.001; Table
3).
Individual emotions
There was a significant interaction between group and the categories of
vocal expression (F=5.25; d.f.=10, 286; P<0.001).
Both groups of patients were significantly impaired compared with healthy controls in the identification of all vocal expressions (P<0.001 for all comparisons between each patient group and healthy controls), but patients in the later stages of schizophrenia were significantly more impaired than those in the early stages in the identification of all vocal expressions except fear (P<0.34; Table 3).
Neutral tone and clinical and demographic variables as covariates
When the neutral tone of voice, age, years of education and current mood
were taken into account, the effect of group remained highly significant
(F=72.25; d.f.=2,149; P<0.001). The adjusted mean
difference between patients with chronic schizophrenia and those in the early
stages of illness was -7.12 (95% CI -12.39 to -1.85); the difference between
those with chronic schizophrenia and healthy controls was -28.78 (95% CI
-33.60 to -23.88) and that between patients in the early stages of
schizophrenia and healthy controls was -21.60 (95% CI -26.93 to -16.38).
Furthermore, the main effect of group remained highly significant after controlling for all these variables for recognition of positive (F=14.16; d.f.=2,149; P<0.001) and negative emotions (F=77.13; d.f.=2,149; P<0.001).
Pearson correlations between the mean score on the VERT and neuroleptic dose, PANSS score, duration of illness, and number of prior admissions were not significant in either of the two patient groups.
Finally, there was no significant effect of gender on VERT performance after covarying for the above variables (F=1.76; d.f.=1,149; P=0.18).
Correlation between facial and vocal emotion recognition tasks
After covarying for the above variables, correlational analyses were
performed to examine any association between performance on facial and vocal
emotion recognition tests. A significant but small positive correlation
between performance on the FERT and VERT was found in each group (patients
with early schizophrenia: Pearsons r=0.27; P=0.05;
patients with chronic schizophrenia: Pearsons r=0.39;
P=0.005; healthy controls: Pearsons r=0.46;
P=0.001). Further correlation matrices were constructed to examine
the strength of association between processing of individual emotion
categories in the two modalities (i.e. facial and vocal emotion recognition).
In the healthy control group the only significant cross-modal correlation was
in the recognition of anger in faces and voices (r=0.49;
P<0.01). In both patient groups there were no significant
correlations between performance on individual emotion recognition in facial
and vocal recognition tests.
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DISCUSSION |
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Cross-modal emotion recognition impairment
First, all patients with schizophrenia were impaired in the recognition of
emotional and non-emotional facial and vocal stimuli, supporting findings from
previous studies demonstrating a generalised perceptual deficit in
schizophrenia (Kerr & Neale,
1993; Mandal et al,
1998; Hooker & Park,
2002). The deficit in emotion recognition in all patients with
schizophrenia remained significant even after covarying for the impairment in
non-emotional face and voice recognition, supporting previous data indicating
a specific deficit in emotion identification in schizophrenia
(Silver et al, 2002).
The presence of deficits in more than one sensory modality
(Kee et al, 1998;
Edwards et al, 2001; Hooker & Park, 2002)
suggests a cross-modal emotion processing deficit. The right hemisphere has
been linked with face and emotion processing
(Borod, 2000). Our findings may
therefore suggest a role for right hemisphere dysfunction in
schizophrenia.
Interestingly, there were only small positive correlations between the magnitude of the overall deficits in emotion recognition for stimuli of each sensory modality in both healthy controls and patients. These were not present for individual emotions in either group, however. It is therefore possible that different emotions are displayed and recognised more easily in different sensory modalities, e.g. happiness may be recognised more easily from a face than a voice.
Impairments in positive and negative emotion recognition
Second, patients with schizophrenia demonstrated marked impairments overall
in the recognition of negative and positive emotions, consistent with some
(Schneider et al,
1995) but not all previous findings
(Mandal et al, 1998;
Borod, 2000). We also examined
the ability of patients with schizophrenia to identify individual emotions.
Overall, all patients were significantly less accurate than healthy volunteers
in recognising all emotional stimuli, but were relatively less impaired in the
identification of happiness, particularly from faces. Others have also
demonstrated greater accuracy in the recognition of happiness than negative
emotions by patients with schizophrenia
(Dougherty et al,
1974), and a relatively greater impairment in the identification
of negative compared with positive emotional stimuli in these patients in
facial (Mandal et al,
1998) and non-visual modalities
(Borod, 2000;
Edwards et al,
2001).
Greater impairment in later stages of illness
Third, our findings also demonstrated that patients in later stages of
schizophrenia were significantly impaired compared with those in the early
stages of illness and healthy controls
(Silver et al, 2002)
in recognising all examined expressions. This suggests a progressive
impairment in emotion identification in schizophrenia, which may have resulted
from treatment with typical antipsychotics, institutionalisation or the
illness itself. We concede, however, that only a prospective design would
allow us to determine whether emotion perception deficits were truly
progressive in schizophrenia. An alternative explanation is that individuals
in later stages of illness represented a distinct subgroup of patients, and
would support the presence of heterogeneity within schizophrenia rather than
illness progression. These two possibilities are not mutually exclusive,
however.
No correlation between symptom severity and emotion recognition deficits
Finally, we did not demonstrate significant correlations between
performance on any of the emotion recognition tasks and the examined clinical
variables. This might be explained by some recent models that advocate
progressive, essentially neurodegenerative processes involving excitotoxicity
in addition to neurodevelopmental processes
(Garver et al, 1999).
Here, illness duration rather than symptom ratings would then be predicted to
be correlated with task performance deficits. We did not, however, demonstrate
such a correlation either; rather we merely demonstrated that individuals in
the later stages of illness were more impaired than those in earlier
stages.
Deficits in emotion recognition and social dysfunction
We have provided evidence for the presence of pervasive deficits in emotion
recognition in more than one sensory modality in schizophrenia, which appears
to increase with illness chronicity. These deficits are not specifically
related to positive or negative symptoms, medication or current mood state.
Our results are some of the first to suggest that in schizophrenia there might
be progressive emotion processing deficits, which appear to be unrelated to
specific symptom profiles but may be responsible for the social dysfunction
observed in people with this disorder.
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Clinical Implications and Limitations |
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LIMITATIONS
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REFERENCES |
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Received for publication December 8, 2003. Revision received January 27, 2005. Accepted for publication February 4, 2005.
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