EEG-correlates of facial affect recognition and categorisation of blurred faces in schizophrenic patients and healthy volunteers

The ability to recognise emotional expressions of faces and the ability to categorise blurred and non-blurred faces and complex objects was tested in 16 schizophrenic in-patients and 16 healthy volunteers. EEGs were recorded during performance of the tasks and event-related potentials were compared between groups. Patients performed worse than healthy volunteers in recogni tion of facial affect but not in categorisation of blurred faces. Furthermo re, within a 180-250 ms latency range patients showed reduced amplitudes du ring affect recognition compared with controls but not during categorisatio n of blurred faces. Amplitudes recorded at frontal electrode sites were ass ociated with performance in facial affect recognition. These results provid e a first clue to the neurophysiological basis of the widely reported facia l affect recognition deficit in schizophrenic patients. (C) 2001 Elsevier S cience B.V. All rights reserved.