The effects of familiarity and emotional expression on face processing examined by ERPs in patients with schizophrenia

BACKGROUND The main objective of the study was to determine whether patients with schizophrenia are deficient relative to controls in the processing of faces at different levels of familiarity and types of emotion and the stage where such differences may occur. METHODS ERPs based on 18 patients with schizophrenia and 18 controls were compared in a face identification task at three levels of familiarity (unknown, familiar, subject's own) and for three types of emotion (disgust, smiling, neutral). RESULTS The schizophrenic group was less accurate than controls in the face processing, especially for unknown faces and those expressing negative emotions such as disgust. P1 and N170 amplitudes were lower and P1, N170, P250 amplitudes were of slower onset in patients with schizophrenia. N170 and P250 amplitudes were modulated by familiarity and face expression in a different manner in patients than controls. CONCLUSIONS Schizophrenia is associated with a genelarized defect of face processing, both in terms of familiarity and emotional expression, attributable to deficient processing at sensory (P1) and perceptual (N170) stages. These patients appear to have difficulty in encoding the structure of a face and thereby do not evaluate correctly familiarity and emotion.

[1]  John J. Foxe,et al.  Early visual processing deficits in schizophrenia: impaired P1 generation revealed by high-density electrical mapping , 2001, Neuroreport.

[2]  H J Keselman,et al.  Repeated measures F tests and psychophysiological research: controlling the number of false positives. , 1980, Psychophysiology.

[3]  R. Ihl,et al.  EEG-correlates of facial affect recognition and categorisation of blurred faces in schizophrenic patients and healthy volunteers , 2001, Schizophrenia Research.

[4]  J. Addington,et al.  Facial affect recognition and information processing in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder , 1998, Schizophrenia Research.

[5]  M. Herrmann,et al.  Early-stage face processing dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia. , 2004, The American journal of psychiatry.

[6]  Steven M Platek,et al.  Self-face recognition is affected by schizotypal personality traits , 2002, Schizophrenia Research.

[7]  R. Adolphs,et al.  Cortical Systems for the Recognition of Emotion in Facial Expressions , 1996, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[8]  Mohamed Rebaï,et al.  Familiarity and emotional expression influence an early stage of face processing: An electrophysiological study , 2005, Brain and Cognition.

[9]  M. Phillips,et al.  Facial processing in schizophrenia and delusional misidentification: cognitive neuropsychiatric approaches , 1995, Schizophrenia Research.

[10]  O Bertrand,et al.  A theoretical justification of the average reference in topographic evoked potential studies. , 1985, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[11]  Thomas F Münte,et al.  Temporal dynamics of early perceptual processing , 1998, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[12]  Florence Thibaut,et al.  ERPs ASSOCIATED WITH FAMILIARITY AND DEGREE OF FAMILIARITY DURING FACE RECOGNITION , 2002, The International journal of neuroscience.

[13]  R. Gur,et al.  Emotion recognition deficit in schizophrenia: association with symptomatology and cognition , 2000, Biological Psychiatry.

[14]  J. Borod,et al.  Perception of Facial Emotion in Schizophrenic and Right Brain-Damaged Patients , 1993, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[15]  R. D. Pascual-Marqui,et al.  Face-elicited ERPs and affective attitude: brain electric microstate and tomography analyses , 2000, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[16]  D. Javitt,et al.  Dysfunction of early-stage visual processing in schizophrenia: harmonic analysis , 2005, Schizophrenia Research.

[17]  E. Walker,et al.  Recognition and identification of facial stimuli by schizophrenics and patients with affective disorders. , 1984, The British journal of clinical psychology.

[18]  R. McCarley,et al.  Functional and structural deficits in brain regions subserving face perception in schizophrenia. , 2006, The American journal of psychiatry.

[19]  Ilona Kovács,et al.  Perceptual organization, the disorganization syndrome, and context processing in chronic schizophrenia , 2000, Schizophrenia Research.

[20]  Dc Washington.  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Ed. , 1994 .

[21]  Michela Balconi,et al.  Face-selective processing and the effect of pleasant and unpleasant emotional expressions on ERP correlates. , 2003, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[22]  Uta Frith,et al.  Theory of mind , 2001, Current Biology.

[23]  Ruben C. Gur,et al.  Emotional processing in schizophrenia: Neurobehavioral probes in relation to psychopathology , 1995, Schizophrenia Research.

[24]  M. Mandal,et al.  Facial expressions of emotions and schizophrenia: a review. , 1998, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[25]  J H Maunsell,et al.  The Brain's Visual World: Representation of Visual Targets in Cerebral Cortex , 1995, Science.

[26]  Stefan R Schweinberger,et al.  What's special about personally familiar faces? A multimodal approach. , 2004, Psychophysiology.

[27]  Stephan Heckers,et al.  Schizophrenia and cognitive function , 2000, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[28]  D. Campion,et al.  A concordance study of three electrophysiological measures in schizophrenia. , 2005, The American journal of psychiatry.

[29]  Javier Quintana,et al.  Right lateral fusiform gyrus dysfunction during facial information processing in schizophrenia , 2003, Biological Psychiatry.

[30]  L. Deouell,et al.  STRUCTURAL ENCODING AND IDENTIFICATION IN FACE PROCESSING: ERP EVIDENCE FOR SEPARATE MECHANISMS , 2000, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[31]  K. Nakayama,et al.  Robust representations for faces: evidence from visual search. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[32]  D C Hay,et al.  Movement, face processing and schizophrenia: evidence of a differential deficit in expression analysis. , 1994, The British journal of clinical psychology.

[33]  Ruben C. Gur,et al.  Self-face recognition and theory of mind in patients with schizophrenia and first-degree relatives , 2006, Schizophrenia Research.

[34]  Nicolas Franck,et al.  Selective attention to facial emotion and identity in schizophrenia , 2002, Neuropsychologia.

[35]  Christoph M. Michel,et al.  Two electrophysiological stages of spatial orienting towards fearful faces: early temporo-parietal activation preceding gain control in extrastriate visual cortex , 2005, NeuroImage.

[36]  P. Pattison,et al.  Emotion recognition via facial expression and affective prosody in schizophrenia: a methodological review. , 2002, Clinical psychology review.

[37]  R. C. Oldfield.  The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. , 1971, Neuropsychologia.

[38]  J. Haxby,et al.  The distributed human neural system for face perception , 2000, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[39]  H. Cho,et al.  Reduced P3 amplitudes by negative facial emotional photographs in schizophrenia , 2003, Schizophrenia Research.

[40]  Evian Gordon,et al.  Visual scanpaths in schizophrenia: is there a deficit in face recognition? , 1999, Schizophrenia Research.

[41]  Francois Jouen,et al.  Spatial Frequency and Right Hemisphere: An Electrophysiological Investigation , 1998, Brain and Cognition.

[42]  Sohee Park,et al.  Emotion processing and its relationship to social functioning in schizophrenia patients , 2002, Psychiatry Research.

[43]  D. Penn,et al.  Emotion recognition and social competence in chronic schizophrenia. , 1996, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[44]  W. Gaebel,et al.  Facial-affect recognition and visual scanning behaviour in the course of schizophrenia , 1997, Schizophrenia Research.

[45]  L. de Jong-van den Berg,et al.  Chlorpromazine Equivalents Versus Defined Daily Doses: How to Compare Antipsychotic Drug Doses? , 2003, Journal of clinical psychopharmacology.

[46]  M. Crommelinck,et al.  Is the N170 for faces cognitively penetrable? Evidence from repetition priming of Mooney faces of familiar and unfamiliar persons. , 2003, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[47]  Brain mechanisms for recognition of faces, facial expression, and gestures: neuropsychological and electroencephalographic studies in normals, brain-lesioned patients, and schizophrenics. , 1990, Research publications - Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease.

[48]  M. Brüne.  "Theory of mind" in schizophrenia: a review of the literature. , 2005, Schizophrenia bulletin.

[49]  S. Campanella,et al.  Categorical Perception of Happiness and Fear Facial Expressions: An ERP Study , 2002, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[50]  Leanne M Williams,et al.  Visual scanpaths to positive and negative facial emotions in an outpatient schizophrenia sample , 2002, Schizophrenia Research.

[51]  Oleg Korzyukov,et al.  Sensory gating deficits during the mid-latency phase of information processing in medicated schizophrenia patients , 2004, Psychiatry Research.

[52]  Stefan R Schweinberger,et al.  Age-related slowing in face and name recognition: evidence from event-related brain potentials. , 2002, Psychology and aging.

[53]  A. Kring,et al.  More evidence for generalized poor performance in facial emotion perception in schizophrenia. , 1996, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[54]  J. Neale,et al.  Emotion perception in schizophrenia: specific deficit or further evidence of generalized poor performance? , 1993, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[55]  John J. Foxe,et al.  Sensory Contributions to Impaired Prosodic Processing in Schizophrenia , 2005, Biological Psychiatry.

[56]  C. Schroeder,et al.  Dysfunction of early-stage visual processing in schizophrenia. , 2001, The American journal of psychiatry.

[57]  M. Eimer.  Event-related brain potentials distinguish processing stages involved in face perception and recognition , 2000, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[58]  Mohamed Rebaï,et al.  The effects of inversion and eye displacements of familiar and unknown faces on early and late-stage ERPs. , 2006, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.