Alexithymia and the Recognition of Facial Emotion in Schizophrenic Patients.
- Author:
Jin Chan NOH
1
;
Sung Hyouk PARK
;
Kyung Hee KIM
;
So Yul KIM
;
Sung Woong SHIN
;
Kounseok LEE
Author Information
1. Department of Psychiatry, Gongju National Hospital, Gongju, Korea.
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
Alexithymia;
Facial emotion;
Emotion recognition;
Schizophrenia
- MeSH:
Affective Symptoms;
Anger;
Humans;
Schizophrenia
- From:Journal of the Korean Society of Biological Psychiatry
2011;18(4):239-244
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
OBJECTIVES: Schizophrenic patients have been shown to be impaired in both emotional self-awareness and recognition of others' facial emotions. Alexithymia refers to the deficits in emotional self-awareness. The relationship between alexithymia and recognition of others' facial emotions needs to be explored to better understand the characteristics of emotional deficits in schizophrenic patients. METHODS: Thirty control subjects and 31 schizophrenic patients completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20-Korean version (TAS-20K) and facial emotion recognition task. The stimuli in facial emotion recognition task consist of 6 emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and neutral). Recognition accuracy was calculated within each emotion category. Correlations between TAS-20K and recognition accuracy were analyzed. RESULTS: The schizophrenic patients showed higher TAS-20K scores and lower recognition accuracy compared with the control subjects. The schizophrenic patients did not demonstrate any significant correlations between TAS-20K and recognition accuracy, unlike the control subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that, although schizophrenia may impair both emotional self-awareness and recognition of others' facial emotions, the degrees of deficit can be different between emotional self-awareness and recognition of others' facial emotions. This indicates that the emotional deficits in schizophrenia may assume more complex features.
