Multisensory integration of emotional faces and voices in schizophrenics

Abstract

In their natural environment, organisms receive information through multiple sensory channels and these inputs from different sensory systems are routinely combined into integrated percepts. Previously, we reported that in a population of schizophrenics, deficits in audiovisual integration were observed for complex stimuli (auditory and visual syllables), but not for more simple ones (beeps and light flashes). Here, we investigated multisensory integration of emotional information in a group of schizophrenic patients. In Experiment 1, we found a reduced effect of an emotional voice on the categorization of a facial expression. In Experiment 2, the reverse test situation was presented, and, here, we observed an exaggerated effect of a face expression on the categorization of an emotional voice. Results are discussed in the light of current models of multisensory integration and their relevance for schizophrenia.

Disrupted relationship between “resting state” connectivity and task-evoked activity during social perception in schizophrenia

“…Regarding our behavioral measures (see Supplementary material), we found delayed reaction times and increased chance performance in behavior when judging social stimulus congruence. These data are consistent with, and extend, previous studies in schizophrenia that demonstrate abnormal integrative processing of multisensory (audiovisual) emotional information (Muller et al, 2014;De Gelder et al, 2005) and congruence effects during the Stroop test (Westerhausen et al, 2011;Besnier et al, 2011).…”

Disrupted relationship between “resting state” connectivity and task-evoked activity during social perception in schizophrenia

“…Regarding our behavioral measures (see Supplementary material), we found delayed reaction times and increased chance performance in behavior when judging social stimulus congruence. These data are consistent with, and extend, previous studies in schizophrenia that demonstrate abnormal integrative processing of multisensory (audiovisual) emotional information (Muller et al, 2014;De Gelder et al, 2005) and congruence effects during the Stroop test (Westerhausen et al, 2011;Besnier et al, 2011).…”

Eluding the illusion? Schizophrenia, dopamine and the McGurk effect

“…While the concordance of our results with previous investigations of the McGurk effect in schizophrenia (de Gelder et al, 2005; Pearl et al, 2009) suggest that this is not the sole driver of our between-group differences, previous links between placebo responses and dopamine warrant discussion. Striatal dopamine has been shown to be positively associated with both anticipatory responses during reward learning (with the latter indices of the effects of Bayesian priors), and the level of placebo responses to preparations believed to have anti-nociceptive properties (Scott et al, 2007).…”

The Effect of Context Processing on Different Aspects of Social Cognition in Schizophrenia

“…Somewhat surprisingly, we did not find any relationship between context processing and voice or face emotion perception among individuals with schizophrenia. In one sense, this result could be seen as inconsistent with prior work showing that: (a) context can influence emotion perception in healthy individuals 53 (M.J. Green et al, in preparation) and (b) individuals with schizophrenia show a deficit in their ability to use context to modulate emotion perception. 16,17 However, unlike these prior studies, our emotion perception task did not contain any contextual information that either controls or patients could use to modify their emotion recognition judgments.…”

Disrupted relationship between “resting state” connectivity and task-evoked activity during social perception in schizophrenia

“…Regarding our behavioral measures (see Supplementary material), we found delayed reaction times and increased chance performance in behavior when judging social stimulus congruence. These data are consistent with, and extend, previous studies in schizophrenia that demonstrate abnormal integrative processing of multisensory (audiovisual) emotional information (Muller et al, 2014;De Gelder et al, 2005) and congruence effects during the Stroop test (Westerhausen et al, 2011;Besnier et al, 2011).…”

Eluding the illusion? Schizophrenia, dopamine and the McGurk effect

“…While the concordance of our results with previous investigations of the McGurk effect in schizophrenia (de Gelder et al, 2005; Pearl et al, 2009) suggest that this is not the sole driver of our between-group differences, previous links between placebo responses and dopamine warrant discussion. Striatal dopamine has been shown to be positively associated with both anticipatory responses during reward learning (with the latter indices of the effects of Bayesian priors), and the level of placebo responses to preparations believed to have anti-nociceptive properties (Scott et al, 2007).…”

The Effect of Context Processing on Different Aspects of Social Cognition in Schizophrenia

“…Somewhat surprisingly, we did not find any relationship between context processing and voice or face emotion perception among individuals with schizophrenia. In one sense, this result could be seen as inconsistent with prior work showing that: (a) context can influence emotion perception in healthy individuals 53 (M.J. Green et al, in preparation) and (b) individuals with schizophrenia show a deficit in their ability to use context to modulate emotion perception. 16,17 However, unlike these prior studies, our emotion perception task did not contain any contextual information that either controls or patients could use to modify their emotion recognition judgments.…”

Disrupted relationship between “resting state” connectivity and task-evoked activity during social perception in schizophrenia

“…Regarding our behavioral measures (see Supplementary material), we found delayed reaction times and increased chance performance in behavior when judging social stimulus congruence. These data are consistent with, and extend, previous studies in schizophrenia that demonstrate abnormal integrative processing of multisensory (audiovisual) emotional information (Muller et al, 2014;De Gelder et al, 2005) and congruence effects during the Stroop test (Westerhausen et al, 2011;Besnier et al, 2011).…”

Eluding the illusion? Schizophrenia, dopamine and the McGurk effect

“…While the concordance of our results with previous investigations of the McGurk effect in schizophrenia (de Gelder et al, 2005; Pearl et al, 2009) suggest that this is not the sole driver of our between-group differences, previous links between placebo responses and dopamine warrant discussion. Striatal dopamine has been shown to be positively associated with both anticipatory responses during reward learning (with the latter indices of the effects of Bayesian priors), and the level of placebo responses to preparations believed to have anti-nociceptive properties (Scott et al, 2007).…”

The Effect of Context Processing on Different Aspects of Social Cognition in Schizophrenia

“…Somewhat surprisingly, we did not find any relationship between context processing and voice or face emotion perception among individuals with schizophrenia. In one sense, this result could be seen as inconsistent with prior work showing that: (a) context can influence emotion perception in healthy individuals 53 (M.J. Green et al, in preparation) and (b) individuals with schizophrenia show a deficit in their ability to use context to modulate emotion perception. 16,17 However, unlike these prior studies, our emotion perception task did not contain any contextual information that either controls or patients could use to modify their emotion recognition judgments.…”