Emotion recognition in schizophrenia: Further investigation of generalizedversus specific deficit models

In this study, the authors examined the nature or emotion perception in sch izophrenia. Two samples of people with schizophrenia. one receiving acute c are for a recent exacerbation of symptoms and the other receiving extended care, were compared with a nonclinical control group on emotion perception and general perception measures. The nonclinical control group obtained the highest scores on all of the study measures. and the acutely ill group obt ained the lowest scares. Furthermore, the acutely ill sample had specific d eficit in emotion perception that remained present after controlling for pe rformance on the general perception tasks. Conversely, the deficits in emot ion discrimination in the extended-care sample reflected generalized poor p erformance. Differences in performance on the emotion identification task b etween the 2 clinical groups were reduced when controlling for active sympt oms.