Usability of a psychotherapeutic interactive gaming tool used in Facial Emotion Recognition for people with Schizophrenia (Preprint)

Abstract

The interactive software "Feeling Master" (a Cartoon Facial Recognition Tool) was developed to investigate the deficit in facial emotion recognition (FER) with a sample of patients with schizophrenia in a pilot project framework. 24 persons with schizophrenia and 17 healthy control (HC) subjects completed the "Feeling Master" including five emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear and surprise). Regarding the group with schizophrenia they were evaluated with the Personal and Situational Attribution Questionnaire (IPSAQ) and the Hinting Task (Theory of Mind) to evaluate social cognition. Descriptive data showed suitable usability, adaptability, effectiveness and efficiency of "feeling master".Patients with schizophrenia showed impairments in emotion recognition. The individuals with schizophrenia remained slower than the HC in the recognition of each emotion. Regarding the impairment in the recognition of each emotion we only have found significant error rates on fear discrimination (P=.07). And the correlations between correct response on the "Feeling Master" and the Hinting Task showed significant values in the correlation of surprise and Theory of Mind (P=.46). In conclusion, the study puts forward the usability of the "feeling master" in FER for people with schizophrenia. These findings lend support to the notion that difficulties in emotion recognition are more prevalent in people with schizophrenia, and those are associated with an imparment in ToM, suggesting the potential utility of the FER in the rehabilitation of people with schizophrenia.