MORE EVIDENCE FOR GENERALIZED POOR PERFORMANCE IN FACIAL EMOTION PERCEPTION IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

Previous studies showing that schizophrenic patients have a deficit in the ability to perceive facial expressions of emotion in others often have not used a differential deficit design and standardized measures of emotion perception. Using standardized and cross-validated measure s in a differential deficit design, S. L. Kerr and J. M. Neale(1993) f ound no evidence for a deficit specific to emotion perception among un medicated schizophrenic patients. The present study replicated and ext ended the findings of Kerr and Neale in a sample of medicated schizoph renic patients. Results showed that medicated patients performed more poorly than controls overall; however they performed no worse on facia l emotion perception tasks than on a matched control task. These findi ngs support Kerr and Neale's conclusion that schizophrenic patients do not have a differential deficit in facial emotion perception ability. Future research should examine the nature of schizophrenic patients g eneralized poor performance on tests of facial emotion perception.