Facial emotion recognition and schizotypal traits: A systematic review of behavioural studies

Abstract

Aim: Previous research has indicated that individuals expressing high schizotypal traits and patients with Schizotypal Personality Disorder (SPD), show deficits in facial emotion recognition, compared to low schizotypal or control groups. On the other hand, non-significant findings also exist and the association of facial emotion recognition deficits with the different schizotypal dimensions is not well defined, thus limiting any conclusive outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to further clarify this relationship.Methods: PsychInfo, Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed were systematically searched, and 23 papers with a cross-sectional design were selected. Nineteen studies examined individuals with high schizotypal traits and four studies evaluated SPD individuals with behavioural facial emotion recognition paradigms and self-report measures or clinical interviews for schizotypal traits. All selected studies were published between 1994 and August 2020.Results: According to the evidence of studies, high schizotypal individuals and SPD patients have poorer performance in facial emotion recognition tasks. Negative schizotypy was related to lower accuracy for positive and negative emotions and faster emotion labeling while positive schizotypy was associated with worse accuracy for positive, negative and neutral emotions and more biases. Disorganized schizotypy was associated with poorer accuracy for negative emotions and suspiciousness with higher accuracy for disgust faces but lower total accuracy.Conclusions: These findings are consistent with the vulnerability for schizophrenia spectrum disorders and support the idea that emotion recognition deficits are trait markers for these conditions. Thus, the effectiveness of early-intervention programmes could increase by also targeting this class of deficits.

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

“…This overconfidencealso extending to lowerlevel visual perception (e.g., Moritz et al, 2014) is assumed to contribute to the development and maintenance of positive symptoms, such as delusions (Balzan, 2016). Furthermore, deficits in emotion perception might be a potential endophenotype of schizophrenia, as they are also observed (although less severely) in unaffected first-degree relatives (Allott et al, 2015), clinical high-risk (Allott et al, 2014) and, of foremost importance to the present study, schizotypy (see Giakoumaki, 2016;Zouraraki et al, 2022).…”

“…Despite faces in the real world being constantly in motion, displaying dynamic cues related to verbal and non-verbal communication, gaze, and even emotional state (Dobs et al, 2018;Krumhuber et al, 2013), the perception of such stimuli in schizotypy is still underexplored (see Zouraraki et al, 2022). Remarkably, studies have showed that observers can anticipate others' emotional states based on subtle changes in facial expression (Jellema et al, 2011;Marian & Shimamura, 2013;Palumbo & Jellema, 2013) and that this effect is altered in neurodevelopmental disorders (Palumbo et al, 2015(Palumbo et al, , 2018.…”

“…Still, caution is needed due to the weak strength of the correlation (r = 0.20). Indeed, despite evidence of abnormal emotion recognition in schizotypal traits (see Giakoumaki, 2016;Zouraraki et al, 2022), this effect is far from being robust, with some authors failing to find an association between emotional face perception and schizotypal traits (e.g., Toomey & Schuldberg, 1995;van't Wout et al, 2004;Waldeck & Miller, 2000). For instance, Rus-Calafell et al (2013) did not find a significant correlation between schizotypal traits and emotion recognition for both static and dynamic face stimuli.…”

Cognitive Processes and Resting-State Functional Neuroimaging Findings in High Schizotypal Individuals and Schizotypal Personality Disorder Patients: A Systematic Review

“…Several lines of research have pointed out the overlap between schizotypy, SPD and schizophrenia [ 19 , 20 ], indicating commonalities in genetic, neurobiological and psychosocial etiological factors [ 15 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ]. These conditions are also characterized by analogous alterations in brain function [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ] and qualitatively similar neurocognitive [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ] and social cognition [ 3 , 33 , 34 ] impairments.…”

Cold executive function processes and their hot analogs in schizotypy

“…With regard to schizotypy, it refers to personality traits, it is not a new construct and was first described by S. Rado (1953). Since Rado’s observations, a significant amount of research has described the cognitive (Giakoumaki, 2012; Ettinger et al, 2014; Ettinger et al, 2015; Mohr & Ettinger, 2014; Siddi et al, 2017; Steffens et al, 2018), affective (Giakoumaki, 2016; Zouraraki, Karamanouna, et al, 2023), psychophysiological (Giakoumaki, 2012; Wan et al, 2017), neuroanatomical (Ettinger et al, 2015; Kirschner et al, 2022; Tonini et al, 2021) and genetic (Ettinger et al, 2014; Mohr & Ettinger, 2014; Walter et al, 2016) correlates of schizotypy, which highly overlap with schizophrenia’s respective indices.…”