Psychiatry Investig.
2013 Dec;10(4):393-398.
The Associations between Visual Attention and Facial Expression Identification in Patients with Schizophrenia
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Psychology, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohusiung, Taiwan.
- 2Department of Human Development, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan. dibe1011@yahoo.com.tw
- 3Institute of Gerontology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
- 4Department of Psychiatry, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Kaohusiung, Taiwan.
- 5Department of Clinical Psychology, Shin-Ann Hospital, Yunlin, Taiwan.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
Visual search is an important attention process that precedes the information processing. Visual search also mediates the relationship between cognition function (attention) and social cognition (such as facial expression identification). However, the association between visual attention and social cognition in patients with schizophrenia remains unknown. The purposes of this study were to examine the differences in visual search performance and facial expression identification between patients with schizophrenia and normal controls, and to explore the relationship between visual search performance and facial expression identification in patients with schizophrenia.
METHODS
Fourteen patients with schizophrenia (mean age=46.36+/-6.74) and 15 normal controls (mean age=40.87+/-9.33) participated this study. The visual search task, including feature search and conjunction search, and Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expression of Emotion were administered.
RESULTS
Patients with schizophrenia had worse visual search performance both in feature search and conjunction search than normal controls, as well as had worse facial expression identification, especially in surprised and sadness. In addition, there were negative associations between visual search performance and facial expression identification in patients with schizophrenia, especially in surprised and sadness. However, this phenomenon was not showed in normal controls.
CONCLUSION
Patients with schizophrenia who had visual search deficits had the impairment on facial expression identification. Increasing ability of visual search and facial expression identification may improve their social function and interpersonal relationship.
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