Recognition, differentiation, and the knowledge about mimic expressions of emotions among patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Objectives: The study aims at assessing the ability to recognize and differentiate mimic expressions of emotions, as well as the knowledge about them among the people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Methods: The study involved 100 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, and 100 healthy volunteers. Participants performed three tasks in a computer-based experiment aimed at recognition of mimic expressions. It used the faces of 30 people (14 men and 16 women) from the Warsaw Set of Emotional Facial Expression Pictures. The photographs present six basic emotions (happiness, fear, disgust, anger, sadness, surprise).

Results: Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia achieved lower results in recognition and differentiation of selected emotional expressions vs. healthy volunteers. The patients also revealed less knowledge about mimic expressions of emotions.

Conclusions: The study evidenced that problems with recognizing emotions result not only from dysfunctions in the early phases of perception regarding mimic expressions of emotions, but also from dysfunction in the central processing of affective stimuli. The results of the study form the basis for developing training aimed at recognition of mimic expressions. Such training should teach the patients to correctly categorize emotions and improve their knowledge on emotional expressions.