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The influence of emotion clarity on emotional prosody identification in paranoid schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2008

D. R. Bach ,
K. Buxtorf ,
D. Grandjean  and
W. K. Strik
D. R. Bach*
Affiliation:
University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bolligenstrasse 111, 3000 Bern 60, Switzerland
K. Buxtorf
Affiliation:
University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bolligenstrasse 111, 3000 Bern 60, Switzerland
D. Grandjean
Affiliation:
Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, 7 rue des Battoirs, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
W. K. Strik
Affiliation:
University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bolligenstrasse 111, 3000 Bern 60, Switzerland
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr D. R. Bach, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK. (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

Background

Identification of emotional facial expression and emotional prosody (i.e. speech melody) is often impaired in schizophrenia. For facial emotion identification, a recent study suggested that the relative deficit in schizophrenia is enhanced when the presented emotion is easier to recognize. It is unclear whether this effect is specific to face processing or part of a more general emotion recognition deficit.

Method

We used clarity-graded emotional prosodic stimuli without semantic content, and tested 25 in-patients with paranoid schizophrenia, 25 healthy control participants and 25 depressive in-patients on emotional prosody identification. Facial expression identification was used as a control task.

Results

Patients with paranoid schizophrenia performed worse than both control groups in identifying emotional prosody, with no specific deficit in any individual emotion category. This deficit was present in high-clarity but not in low-clarity stimuli. Performance in facial control tasks was also impaired, with identification of emotional facial expression being a better predictor of emotional prosody identification than illness-related factors. Of those, negative symptoms emerged as the best predictor for emotional prosody identification.

Conclusions

This study suggests a general deficit in identifying high-clarity emotional cues. This finding is in line with the hypothesis that schizophrenia is characterized by high noise in internal representations and by increased fluctuations in cerebral networks.

Keywords

Affective prosodyemotional cuesemotional facial expressionemotional prosodyfacial affectnegative symptoms
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 39 , Issue 6 , June 2009 , pp. 927 - 938
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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