Anhedonia as a function of non-affective interpretation of ambiguous stimuli and threshold for affective and neutral stimuli

Abstract

A theory that schizophrenic anhedonia-the failure to express pleasure-is associated with a tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as neutral rather than emotion-laden and arises from selectively high perceptual thresholds for affective stimuli was tested. Seventy-six schizophrenic males were required to guess whether words presented to them tachistoscopically for extremely short periods were positive, negative or neutral in content. The high-anhedonic Ss were significantly more likely to guess neutral words and less likely to offer pleasant interpretations than the low-anhedonic sample, which suggests that anhedonia is associated with a tendency to interpret one's environment as lacking in positive emotional value. The tresholds of high-and low-anhedonic schizophrenic groups then were compared on pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral tachistoscopically-presented stimuli. In the only two significant differences in the latter analyses, high anhedonics showed greater tresholds for neutral stimuli than low anhedonics. These findings suggest that anhedonia is not mediated by peculiarly high tresholds for affective stimuli.

Responses of high- and low-emotional deficit patients to exciting, grating, and neutral stimuli

“…Only a small amount of research on anhedonia has appeared. Watson (1977) found anhedonia associated with tendencies to perceive ambiguous stimuli as emotionally bland, but other studied hypothesized etiological factors-deficient neurological pleasure centers (Watson, 1972a), low physiological arousal (Watson, 1972b), high stimulation threshold (Watson, 1972b), social aversiveness (Watson, 1972a), selective perception (Watson, 1977) and selective attention to emotional stimuli (Watson & Jacobs, 1976)-have yielded negative results. Zuckerman and his associates (1971) have produced a substantial body of research on the correlates of sensation-seeking, but the present authors are unaware of any research on its origins.…”

“…I n this respect they complement two earlier studies in which anhedonia and sensation-seeking deficit were found to be unrelated to threshold for, and selective attention to, stimuli varying in emotional quality (Watson, 1977;Watson & Jacobs, 1976).…”