High Schizotypy Predicts Emotion Recognition Independently of Negative Affect

Abstract

Introduction: Deficits in Emotion Recognition (ER) contribute significantly to poorer functional outcomes in people with schizophrenia. However, rather than reflecting a core symptom of schizophrenia, reduced ER has been suggested to reflect increased mood disorder co-morbidity and confounds of patient status such as medication. We investigated whether ER deficits are replicable in psychometrically defined schizotypy, and whether this putative association is mediated by increased negative affect.Methods: Two hundred and nine participants between the ages of 18 and 69 (66% female) were recruited from online platforms: 80% held an undergraduate qualification or higher, 44% were current students, and 46% were in current employment. Participants were assessed on psychometric schizotypy using the O-LIFE which maps onto the same symptoms structure (positive, negative, and disorganised) as schizophrenia. Negative affect was assessed using the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Emotion Recognition of both positive and negative emotions was assessed using the short version of the Geneva Emotion Recognition Task (GERT-S).Results: Negative schizotypy traits predicted poorer ER accuracy to negative emotions (β = −0.192, p = 0.002) as predicted. Unexpectedly, disorganised schizotypy traits predicted improved performance to negative emotions (β = 0.256, p = 0.007) (primarily disgust). Negative affect was found to be unrelated to ER performance of either valence (both p > 0.591). No measure predicted ER accuracy of positive emotions. Positive schizotypy traits were not found to predict either positive or negative ER accuracy. However, positive schizotypy predicted increased confidence in decisions and disorganised schizotypy predicted reduced confidence in decisions.Discussion: The replication of ER deficits in non-clinical negative schizotypy suggests that the association between negative symptoms and ER deficits in clinical samples may be independent of confounds of patient status (i.e., anti-psychotic medication). The finding that this association was independent of negative affect further suggests ER deficits in patients may also be independent of mood disorder co-morbidity. This association was not demonstrated for the positive symptom dimension of the O-LIFE, which may be due to low levels of this trait in the current sample.

Empathy, Emotion Recognition, and Paranoia in the General Population

“…The lack of a significant association between emotion recognition and paranoia is also somewhat surprising. Past research completed in the general population has shown that those with higher subclinical paranoia had lower overall emotion recognition ability ( Combs and Penn, 2004 ; Klein et al, 2018 ), and misidentified neutral expressions for anger ( Pinkham et al, 2011 ), although a recent study found that positive schizotypy was not associated with emotion recognition ( Dawes et al, 2021 ). This relationship has also been studied extensively in patients with schizophrenia.…”

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

“…particularly at a subclinical level (e.g., Dawes et al, 2021;Köther et al, 2018). For instance, Dawes et al (2021) found only circumstantial evidence of an association between positive schizotypy and higher confidence, while disorganized schizotypy significantly predicted underconfidence for emotion recognition.…”

“…particularly at a subclinical level (e.g., Dawes et al, 2021;Köther et al, 2018). For instance, Dawes et al (2021) found only circumstantial evidence of an association between positive schizotypy and higher confidence, while disorganized schizotypy significantly predicted underconfidence for emotion recognition. Also, Köthler et al (2018) showed a comparable number of high-confidence emotion recognition errors in people with schizophrenia, firstdegree relatives, and people with depression, while people with attenuated positive symptoms and healthy controls made significantly less high-confidence errors.…”

“…Concerning emotion perception, there is evidence that higher schizotypal traits are associated with abnormal emotional face perception (e.g., Brown & Cohen, 2010;Dawes et al, 2021;Fusar-Poli et al, 2022;Morrison et al, 2013;Yan et al, 2020). For instance, using a visual search paradigm, Uono et al (2021) found that schizotypal traitsevaluated with the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ; Raine, 1991))were negatively correlated with the effectiveness for detecting normal versus "anti-facial expressions" 1 of happiness/anger among a crowd of neutral faces.…”

The effect of schizotypy on spatial learning in an environment with a distinctive shape

“…Schizophrenia spectrum disorders and schizotypy produce deficits in many cognitive domains that have been categorized into either social or physical cognitive deficits. On one hand, there is evidence of deficits in how individuals process and interact with their social environment including emotional processing, theory of mind, social perception, and attributional bias (Miller and Lenzenweger, 2012;Cohen et al, 2015;Healy et al, 2016;Green et al, 2019;Dawes et al, 2021). On the other hand, and more relevant to the current study, physical cognitive deficits (Ettinger et al, 2015;Green et al, 2019) have also been shown and are considered main features of SSDs that are worth targeting for early intervention strategies (Gold, 2004;Seidman and Mirsky, 2017).…”