Specificity of emotion-related effects on attentional processing in schizotypy

Abstract

Objectives-In the schizophrenia spectrum, cognitive functions such as perception, language, and attention have been shown to be adversely influenced by negative affect. The present study addressed three issues of specificity and one issue of mechanism regarding affect-related attentional disruption in schizotypy: (1) Is attentional disturbance from negative affective stimuli specific to positive (PS) but not negative schizotypy (NS)? (2) Do positive affective stimuli also foster attentional disturbance? (3) Are anxiety and depression differentially related to PS and NS? (4) Whatever the degree of specificity in these relationships, does anxiety mediate the relationship between schizotypy and attentional disturbance?Methods-Nonpatient participants (N=162) provided responses on scales of schizotypy, anxiety, and depression and performed an emotional Stroop task, judging the ink color of positive, neutral, and negative words.Results-PS but not NS was associated with poorer attentional performance. This attentional disturbance was specific to negative words. PS was associated with anxiety and depression, whereas NS was associated only with depression. Finally, anxiety and depression did not fully mediate the relationship between PS and attentional interference related to negative affective stimuli.* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 312 503 1749; fax: +1 312 908 8789. Conflict of interestAll authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. ContributorsAll authors were involved in data collection. Aprajita Mohanty designed the study, conducted literature searches and statistical analyses, and was the primary author of the manuscript. Gregory Miller and Wendy Heller contributed to writing it and provided laboratory resources, funding, and oversight. Nancy Koven was also involved in designing the study. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript. Conclusions-Findings of attentional disturbance in the presence of negative affective stimuli, particularly in positive schizotypy, have substantial theoretical implications. They provide a path by which the interplay of cognitive and affective phenomena could lead to the formation, maintenance, and exacerbation of positive symptoms, including delusions and hallucinations. Findings from this study also underscore the importance of examining the differential contribution of comorbid anxiety and depression to cognitive and affective function in the schizophrenia spectrum. NIH Public Access

Differential Responses to Emotional Interference in Paranoid Schizophrenia and Bipolar Mania

“…It is noteworthy to mention that schizophrenic patients in the present study did not show increased depressive and manic interference indices as compared with controls, while biases towards negative [28,60] and positive [28] stimuli have been reported in psychotic subjects. As depression might partly link positive psychotic symptoms and interference towards depression-related words [60] , the absence of clinically significant depression in our schizophrenic sample could explain this result.…”

“…As depression might partly link positive psychotic symptoms and interference towards depression-related words [60] , the absence of clinically significant depression in our schizophrenic sample could explain this result. Indeed, in the present study, the schizophrenic group did not fulfill the DSM-IV criteria for a major depressive episode.…”

“…We chose threatening stimuli specifically related to persecutory delusions, mania and depression by requiring the clinical experience of 25 trained psychiatrists [50] , whereas others used nondisease-specific negatively and positively valenced stimuli. Thus, it is likely that prior studies only investigated the impact of emotional processing on inhibition in psychotic patients [28,60] . To support this notion, Demily et al [30] described an emotional bias towards negative and positive word stimuli in schizophrenic patients but also reported a similar finding in healthy controls.…”

Affective processing in positive schizotypy: Loose control of social-emotional information

“…In line with findings in patients with schizophrenia, greater impact of (especially negative) emotionally laden sensory input in terms of greater interference with cognitive processes was reported for nonclinical individuals with high levels of positive schizotypal symptoms compared to individuals scoring low on schizotypal symptoms, indicating impaired control over the influence of social-emotional input and greater vulnerability to emotional arousal (Karcher & Shean, 2012;Mohanty et al, 2008). In addition, positive schizotypy was positively correlated with greater self-reported impact of, especially negative, emotions on thoughts and behaviors (Cicero & Kerns, 2010;Martin, Becker, Cicero, Docherty, & Kerns, 2011).…”

Beyond “Cold” Cognition: Exploring Cognitive Control of Emotion as a Risk Factor for Psychosis

“…Studies using ECA paradigms present similar findings. PP individuals demonstrate impaired inhibition of irrelevant negative faces during a flanker task [63], and increased negative word interference on the emotional Stroop task [95]. Similarly, GHR individuals show increased emotion interference effects on working memory performance, particularly in male subjects [96], and on emotional Stroop tasks [97].…”