Chapellier Victoria, Pavlidou Anastasia, Maderthaner Lydia, von Känel Sofie, Walther Sebastian
Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Front Psychol. 2022 Feb 23;13:804093. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.804093. eCollection 2022.
Nonverbal social perception is the ability to interpret the intentions and dispositions of others by evaluating cues such as facial expressions, body movements, and emotional prosody. Nonverbal social perception plays a key role in social cognition and is fundamental for successful social interactions. Patients with schizophrenia have severe impairments in nonverbal social perception leading to social isolation and withdrawal. Collectively, these aforementioned deficits affect patients' quality of life. Here, we compare nonverbal social perception in patients with schizophrenia and controls and examine how nonverbal social perception relates to daily functioning.
We compared nonverbal social perception in 41 stable outpatients with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls using the Mini Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (Mini-PONS). The participants evaluated 64 video clips showing a female actor demonstrating various nonverbal social cues. Participants were asked to choose one of two options that best described the observed scenario. We correlated clinical ratings (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, Brief Negative Syndrome Scale), Self-report of Negative Symptoms, and functional assessments (functional capacity and functional outcome) with Mini-PONS scores.
Patients performed significantly poorer in the Mini-PONS compared to controls, suggesting deficits in nonverbal social perception. These deficits were not associated with either positive symptoms or negative symptoms (including self-report). However, impaired nonverbal social perception correlated with distinctive domains of BNSS (mainly avolition and blunted affect), as well as functional capacity and functional outcome in patients.
We demonstrate that nonverbal social perception is impaired in stable outpatients with schizophrenia. Nonverbal social perception is directly related to specific negative symptom domains, functional capacity and functional outcome. These findings underline the importance of nonverbal social perception for patients' everyday life and call for novel therapeutic approaches to alleviate nonverbal social perception deficits.
非言语社会认知是一种通过评估面部表情、身体动作和情感韵律等线索来解读他人意图和性格的能力。非言语社会认知在社会认知中起着关键作用，是成功社交互动的基础。精神分裂症患者在非言语社会认知方面存在严重缺陷，导致社会隔离和退缩。总体而言，上述这些缺陷会影响患者的生活质量。在此，我们比较精神分裂症患者与对照组的非言语社会认知，并研究非言语社会认知与日常功能的关系。
我们使用非言语敏感性简表（Mini-PONS）比较了41名病情稳定的精神分裂症门诊患者和30名健康对照者的非言语社会认知。参与者评估了64个视频片段，这些片段展示了一名女性演员表现出各种非言语社会线索。要求参与者从两个选项中选择最能描述所观察场景的一个。我们将临床评分（阳性和阴性症状量表、简明阴性症状量表）、阴性症状自评以及功能评估（功能能力和功能结果）与Mini-PONS得分进行关联。
与对照组相比，患者在Mini-PONS测试中的表现明显更差，表明存在非言语社会认知缺陷。这些缺陷与阳性症状或阴性症状（包括自评）均无关。然而，非言语社会认知受损与简明阴性症状量表的不同领域（主要是意志缺乏和情感迟钝）以及患者的功能能力和功能结果相关。
我们证明病情稳定的精神分裂症门诊患者存在非言语社会认知受损。非言语社会认知与特定的阴性症状领域、功能能力和功能结果直接相关。这些发现强调了非言语社会认知对患者日常生活的重要性，并呼吁采用新的治疗方法来减轻非言语社会认知缺陷。
