AFFECT RECOGNITION IN SCHIZOPHRENIA - A FUNCTION OF GLOBAL IMPAIRMENTOR A SPECIFIC COGNITIVE DEFICIT

To investigate cognitive variables related to affect recognition in sc hizophrenia, 63 subjects with DSM-III-R diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were administered a test battery which includ ed the Bell-Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task (BLERT), Wisconsin Card S orting Test (WCST), Wechsler Memory (WMS-R) and Adult Intelligence Sca les (WAIS-R), Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, Gorham's Proverbs, and Con tinuous Performance Task (CPT). Coefficients revealed a moderate relat ionship between emotion recognition and WCST and CPT but no significan t relationship with other test variables. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that approximately one-third of the variance in BLERT sc ores could be explained by cognitive variables including the Digit Sym bol Subtest, CPT, and Hopkins Verbal Learning Test. Other analyses dem onstrated that subjects with moderate to severe affect recognition imp airment had more perseverative errors, had fewer complete categories a n the WCST and had more errors on the CPT. However, there were no sign ificant differences on global measures of impairment such as WAIS-R IQ s and Digit Symbol Substitution Test. The discussion focuses on defici ts in affect recognition as a distinct feature which contributes to th e heterogeneity of the disorder. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd .