Department of Psychology, The Graduate Center, Queens College, and Brooklyn College of The City University of New York, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
Psychiatry Res. 2017 Oct;256:180-187. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2017.06.040. Epub 2017 Jun 15.
Facial affect recognition (FAR) accuracy is impaired in schizophrenia and, to a lesser extent, in individuals at-risk for psychosis. Reduced reaction time and negative bias on FAR tasks are also evident in schizophrenia, though few studies have examined these measures in at-risk samples. Social dysfunction is associated with FAR deficits in schizophrenia and at-risk individuals. We aimed to elucidate the nature of FAR and social functioning among individuals from a non-clinical population reporting a range of schizotypal traits (i.e., risk for psychosis), and to examine whether FAR mediates the relationship between schizotypal traits and social functioning. Participants completed self-report measures assessing schizotypal traits and social functioning, and a computerized FAR task remotely via the Internet. High schizotypy individuals performed significantly worse than low schizotypy individuals on FAR total and neutral accuracy, demonstrated a negative bias, and reported significantly worse social functioning. Schizotypal traits were also negatively correlated with FAR performance and social functioning in the total sample. FAR accuracy did not mediate the direct relationship between schizotypal traits and social functioning. FAR may be an important social-cognitive endophenotype of psychosis risk with implications for understanding etiology of psychotic spectrum disorders, improving ways of identifying at-risk individuals, and developing preventive strategies.
面部表情识别（FAR）的准确性在精神分裂症患者中受到损害，在有精神病风险的个体中则受到较小程度的损害。在精神分裂症患者中，FAR 任务的反应时间缩短和负性偏差也很明显，但很少有研究在有风险的样本中检查这些措施。社会功能障碍与精神分裂症和有风险个体的 FAR 缺陷有关。我们旨在阐明非临床人群中报告一系列精神分裂症特质（即精神病风险）个体的 FAR 和社会功能的性质，并检查 FAR 是否介导精神分裂症特质与社会功能之间的关系。参与者通过互联网远程完成自我报告的精神分裂症特质和社会功能评估，以及计算机化的 FAR 任务。高精神分裂症特质个体在 FAR 总准确性和中性准确性上的表现明显低于低精神分裂症特质个体，表现出负性偏差，并报告社会功能明显较差。精神分裂症特质也与总样本中的 FAR 表现和社会功能呈负相关。FAR 准确性并不能介导精神分裂症特质与社会功能之间的直接关系。FAR 可能是精神病风险的重要社会认知内表型，对理解精神病谱系障碍的病因、改善识别高危个体的方法以及制定预防策略具有重要意义。
