Facial affect recognition in schizophrenia. Is there a differential deficit?

Several studies have suggested that schizophrenics have a deficit in their ability to recognize the affect expressed in photos of human faces. In this study, the performance of 17 chronic schizophrenics was compared to that of 17 controls on both a test of facial affect recognition and a control task involving facial recognition. Compared with controls, chronic schizophrenics tended to perform more poorly on the test of facial affect recognition, but this difference was eliminated when facial recognition was entered as a covariate. When all test items, including those with poor reliability and discriminatory power, were included in the analysis the schizophrenics showed a significant deficit in facial affect recognition which persisted even when facial recognition was used as a covariate.