The associations between visual attention and facial expression identification in patients with schizophrenia

I. Mei Lin, Sheng Yu Fan*, Tiao Lai Huang, Wan Ting Wu, Shi Ming Li

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

8 Scopus citations

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. Te 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. Te 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 identifications may improve their social function and interpersonal relationship.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)393-398
Number of pages6
JournalPsychiatry Investigation
Volume10
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 12 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Facial expression identification
  • Schizophrenia
  • Visual search

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