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Facial Affect Recognition and Schizotypal Characteristics: A Cross-Cultural Study

Linda Byrne1*, Christopher Wilson1 and David Mellor1
  • 1 Deakin University, School of Psychology, Australia

Deficits in emotional perception are established in schizophrenia. There is also some evidence to support attenuated performance on emotion perception tasks in hypothetically psychosis-prone or 'schizotypal' individuals. There have been relatively few studies that have examined the association between emotion perceptionand particular schizotypal personality features. Further, cross-cultural studies are also lacking. The present study sought to investigate relationships between facial emotion perception and the different aspects of schizotypy in an Anglo-Australian and Mainland Chinese sample. Methods: Facial affect perception accuracy was examined in 151 Anglo-Australian’s and 270 Mainland Chinese who were psychiatrically well individuals. Schizotypal characteristics were assessed using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief. This instrument provides a brief, three factor measure of schizotypy, including 'cognitive-perceptual', 'interpersonal' and 'disorganized' features. It was hypothesized that both the cognitive-perceptual and interpersonal aspects of schizotypy would be associated with less accurate identification of facial expressions of emotion during a forced-choice recognition task using a validated series of black-and-white photographs of Caucasian and Asian faces. Results: Partial support of the hypotheses was found. When the group was examined as a whole, high scores on the Cognitive-perceptual factor were associated with poorer emotion perception. Contrary to predictions, interpersonal aspects of schizotypy were associated with increased rather than decreased accuracy on the facial affect recognition task. There was no association between affect recognition accuracy and disorganised features of schizotypy. Interestingly, associations were found between less accurate identification of other culture, negative emotions for both the Anglo-Australian and Mainland Chinese sample and there were different patterns of associations between emotion perception and schizotypal features for the two groups. Conclusions: These results suggest that subtle deficits in facial affect perception in psychiatrically well individuals may be related to the vulnerability for cognitive-perceptual deficits, as seen in schizophrenia and that it can be found across cultures. This may be specifically related to the perception of negative emotions and heightened when there is more uncertainty in identification, such as when identifying the emotions in people of other cultural groups.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Dr Xiaoyan from Sichuan Normal University in the recruitment of the participants from China. This research was supported by the Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing, Deakin University.

References

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Keywords: Emotion Perception, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenic Psychology, social cognition, cross-cultural comparison

Conference: ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 29 Nov - 2 Dec, 2012.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Emotion and Social

Citation: Byrne L, Wilson C and Mellor D (2012). Facial Affect Recognition and Schizotypal Characteristics: A Cross-Cultural Study. Conference Abstract: ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.208.00127

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Received: 25 Oct 2012; Published Online: 17 Nov 2012.

* Correspondence: Dr. Linda Byrne, Deakin University, School of Psychology, Melbourne, Victoria, 3125, Australia, linda.byrne@deakin.edu.au