Sex Differences in Facial, Prosodic, and Social Context Emotional Recognition in Early-Onset Schizophrenia

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to determine sex differences in facial, prosodic, and social context emotional recognition in schizophrenia (SCH). Thirty-eight patients (SCH, 20 females) and 38 healthy controls (CON, 20 females) participated in the study. Clinical scales (BPRS and PANSS) and an Affective States Scale were applied, as well as tasks to evaluate facial, prosodic, and within a social context emotional recognition. SCH showed lower accuracy and longer response times than CON, but no significant sex differences were observed in either facial or prosody recognition. In social context emotions, however, females showed higher empathy than males with respect to happiness in both groups. SCH reported being more identified with sad films than CON and females more with fear than males. The results of this study confirm the deficits of emotional recognition in male and female patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy subjects. Sex differences were detected in relation to social context emotions and facial and prosodic recognition depending on age.

A systematic review comparing sex differences in cognitive function in schizophrenia and in rodent models for schizophrenia, implications for improved therapeutic strategies

“…Emotional processing assessed by the Penn Emotion Recognition Test was also found to be enhanced in SP and HC females compared with males (Calkins et al, 2013). Another study reported sex differences in social context emotions where females of SP and HC groups showed greater empathy than males with respect to happiness (Ramos-Loyo et al, 2012). Finally, sex differences in olfactory processing have been observed, with better smell identification found in SP and HC females assessed by the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (Malaspina et al, 2012a;Malaspina et al, 2012b).…”

“…When comparing male and female SP groups for symptom profiles, most of the studies reported more severe negative symptoms in males (Moriarity et al, 2001;Ramos-Loyo et al, 2012;Torniainen et al, 2011;Zhang et al, 2012a) while more severe positive symptoms in males have been observed by others (Roesch-Ely et al, 2009).…”

Affective empathy in schizophrenia: a meta-analysis

“…MET = Multifaceted Empathy Test. **The emotion intensity task used in the study by Ramos-Loyo & colleagues (Ramos-Loyo et al, 2012) had individuals provide a self-reported rating of the emotion they experienced while watching an emotion-evoking film, along with the intensity of that emotion. *These effect sizes were not included in the meta-analysis because other effects produced by the same sample were used instead, based on guidelines laid out in the Methods.…”

Deficient Emotional Intelligence and Dysfunctional Early Emotional Prosody Processing Varying with the Severity of Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenics

“…These attributes should render sad sounds as signals of reduced salience. Previous studies have reported significant deficits in the prosodic perception of sad stimuli in SPs [59,62], which could compromise accuracy in the identification of sad sounds [63]. Our findings of delayed brain responses to sad sound in all schizophrenia groups (for past and/or concurrent AH) suggest that a reduction in the ability to perceptually process less emotionally salient environmental stimuli may be a characteristic trait of schizophrenia.…”