Slower access to visual awareness but otherwise intact implicit perception of emotional faces in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders

Lack of social interaction advantage: A domain-general cognitive alteration in schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia (PSZ) showed preserved ability to unconsciously process simple social information (e.g., face and gaze), but not in higher-order cognition (e.g., memory). It is yet unknown how PSZ process social interactions across different cognitive domains. This study systematically investigated the cognitive characteristics of PSZ during social interaction processing from bottom-up perception to top-down memory, and established correlations with schizophrenic symptoms. In two experiments, social interactions were consistently displayed by face-to-face or back-to-back dyads. Experiment 1 enrolled 30 PSZ and 30 healthy control subjects (HCS) with a breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS) paradigm. Experiment 2 recruited 36 PSZ and 36 HCS for two memory tasks, wherein participants restored the between-model distance (working memory task) and recalled the socially bound pairs (long-term memory task). Results indicated that HCS showed advantageous processing of socially interactive stimuli against non-interactive stimuli throughout two experiments, including faster access to visual consciousness, closer spatial distance held in working memory and higher recollection accuracy in long-term memory. However, PSZ did not show any of these advantages, with significant interaction effects for all three tasks (task one: p = .018, ηp2 = .092; task two: p = .021, ηp2 = .074; task three: p = .015, ηp2 = .082). Moreover, correlation analyses indicated that PSZ with more severe negative symptoms (r = -.344, p = .040) or higher medication dosages (r = -.334, p = .046) showed fewer advantages in memorizing socially interactive information. Therefore, social interaction is not prioritized in schizophrenia from bottom-up perception to top-down memory, and the magnitude of such a domain-general cognitive alteration is clinically relevant to symptom severity and medication.

Emotional anticipation for dynamic emotional faces is not modulated by schizotypal traits: A Representational Momentum study

Schizotypy, a personality structure that resembles schizophrenia symptoms, is often associated with abnormal facial emotion perception. Based on the prevailing sense of threat in psychotic experiences, and the immediate perceptual history of seeing others' facial expressions, individuals with high schizotypal traits may exhibit a heightened tendency to anticipate anger. To test this, we used insights from Representational Momentum (RM), a perceptual phenomenon in which the endpoint of a dynamic event is systematically displaced forward, into the immediate future. Angry-to-ambiguous and happy-to-ambiguous avatar faces were presented, each followed by a probe with the same (ambiguous) expression as the endpoint, or one slightly changed to express greater happiness/anger. Participants judged if the probe was "equal" to the endpoint and rated how confident they were. The sample was divided into high (N = 46) and low (N = 49) schizotypal traits using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). First, a forward bias was found in happy-to-ambiguous faces, suggesting emotional anticipation solely for dynamic faces changing towards a potential threat (anger). This may reflect an adaptative mechanism, as it is safer to anticipate any hostility from a conspecific than the opposite. Second, contrary to our hypothesis, high schizotypal traits did not heighten RM for happy-to-ambiguous faces, nor did they lead to overconfidence in biased judgements. This may suggest a typical pattern of emotional anticipation in non-clinical schizotypy, but caution is needed due to the use of self-report questionnaires, university students, and a modest sample size. Future studies should also investigate if the same holds for clinical manifestations of schizophrenia.

Deconstructing Mechanisms of Abnormal Categorical Perception of Emotional Facial Expressions in Schizophrenia Patients

OBJECTIVE

The current study aims to find out the potential reasons why most schizophrenia patients have a relatively low sensitivity to the classification of emotional facial expressions.

METHODS

By using an emotional categorical perception task, eighty-three schizophrenia patients and seventy-one healthy adults are provided with morphed emotional continuums with two emotional facial expressions (a positive emotional valence: happy; a negative emotional valence: sad).

RESULTS

Through comparing the difference between schizophrenia patients and healthy adults in the processes of estimating facial expressions with ambiguous emotions, we find that the pattern of emotional categorical perception for schizophrenia patients is significantly different from that of healthy controls when they process signals on the local facial areas. Compared to healthy people, schizophrenia patients have a significantly separate classification pattern in processing emotional signals between the eyes and mouth regions. It indicates that compared to healthy adults, schizophrenia patients have larger conflicts in integrating emotional signals from different facial areas. To overcome conflicts, more cognitive resources are required. Unfortunately, the lack of cognitive resources leads to the failure of integration, which further increases the difficulty of estimating facial expressions with ambiguous emotions, and finally leads to the relatively low sensitivity of emotional facial expressions classification.

CONCLUSION

To sum up, the deficit of abnormal perceptions of emotional facial expressions in schizophrenia patients results from an integrated deficit of signals on facial areas.

Emotional memory for facial expressions in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: The role of encoding method

Memory is better for emotional rather than neutral events or materials (emotional enhancement of memory; EEM). Evidence suggests that this memory benefit remains intact in schizophrenia, but conflicting findings present the need for further research to understand how and when this process occurs. Here, we examine whether different encoding methods for learning emotional faces may result in different EEM patterns in those with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). A patient group (n = 28) and healthy comparisons (n = 29) encoded faces in two conditions that manipulated attentional focus to promote direct (emotion judgements) or indirect (sex discrimination) processing of emotional content. Based on literature in schizophrenia showing selective emotion perception deficits on tasks of direct processing but relatively intact emotion perception on indirect processing tasks, we hypothesized that patients would show greater EEM effects when faces were encoded indirectly. This hypothesis was not supported, and the patient group instead showed a similar intact EEM for angry and fearful faces to healthy comparisons in both encoding conditions. Further, using the Remember/Know paradigm, we demonstrated that the EEM in SSD appears selective to recollection-based memory, which helps to explain inconsistencies in past literature that has not differentiated between recognition domains. These findings have important implications for improving emotional memory and functional outcomes in SSD; future research should establish how the EEM for facial expressions may relate to social functioning.

Characteristics of Facial Muscle Activity Intensity in Patients With Schizophrenia and Its Relationship to Negative Symptoms

INTRODUCTION

Previous studies have shown that in addition to having impairments in facial emotion recognition, patients with schizophrenia also show a lack of facial expression. Although negative symptoms such as decreased facial activity are common symptoms of schizophrenia, the related factors remain inconclusive. Therefore, this study compared healthy controls to explore the characteristics of facial muscle activity intensity in patients with schizophrenia and its relationship with negative symptoms.

METHODS

This observational and cross-sectional study conducted in a psychiatric hospital in China included a total of 135 patients with schizophrenia and 134 healthy controls. The negative symptoms of schizophrenia were evaluated using the Brief Negative Symptom Scale. The intensity of facial muscle activity under positive, neutral, and negative emotional stimuli conditions was automatically collected by a computer, including 17 values (F01-F17) that represent different facial muscle activities. Statistical tests were performed to analyze facial muscle activity indexes, to explore an objective and quantitative method to evaluate the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

RESULTS

The facial muscle activity intensity of the schizophrenia group at F02 (outer eyebrow), F04 (upper eyelid), F07 (nose), F10 (dimple), F12 (lower jaw 1), F14 (lip 2), and F17 (blink) was lower than that of the healthy controls (p < 0.05). Under positive, neutral, and negative emotional stimuli conditions, the facial muscle activity intensity of F16 (lower jaw 2) was positively correlated with negative symptoms (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Our study indicated that patients with schizophrenia show defects in facial muscle activity and that is associated with negative symptoms.