Perception of socially relevant stimuli in schizophrenia B Nirav O. Bigelow a,1 , Sergio Paradiso a, * ,1 , Ralph Adolphs b,c , David J. Moser a , Stephan Arndt a , Andrea Heberlein d , Peggy Nopoulos a , Nancy C. Andreasen a a University of Iowa, Department of Psychiatry, United States b University of Iowa, Department of Neurology, Division of Cognitive Neuroscience, United States c California Institute of Technology, United States d University of Pennsylvania, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, United States Received 22 June 2005; received in revised form 12 December 2005; accepted 20 December 2005 Available online 23 February 2006 Abstract To examine whether patients with schizophrenia have deficits in the appraisal of socially relevant stimuli, we tested 20 patients and 14 healthy volunteers equated for parental socioeconomic status on recognition of gender stimuli, emotional people stimuli, and emotional scenes. Patients with schizophrenia showed deficits in discrimination of subtle gender differences and in the identification of emotion from human shapes and body motion. Patients showed no impairment on measures of hedonic appraisal of emotional scenes and recognition of emotional expression in human face stimuli. Across tasks, subjects with schizophrenia showed poorer identification of happiness, anger, and fear. The findings point towards circumscribed domains of impaired social cognition in schizophrenia and suggest specific further hypotheses about the neural dysfunction that may underlie them. D 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Schizophrenia; Social cognition; Emotion; Visual perception 1. Introduction A prominent and most disabling feature of schizo- phrenia is the inability to interact normally with others. At the root of this deficit may be an inappropriate use of feedback contingencies from socially relevant stimuli, especially those requiring the representation of human emotion, to guide behavior. Patients with schizophrenia have difficulty in recognition of emo- tions (Archer et al., 1994; Bellack et al., 1996; Borod et al., 1993; Edwards et al., 2001; Feinberg et al., 1986; 0920-9964/$ - see front matter D 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2005.12.856 B Dr. Paradiso is an Edward J. Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation Scholar. Dr. Andreasen is the recipient of NIH grants MH19113, MH60990, and MHCRC43271. * Corresponding author. Psychiatry and Neuroscience Graduate Program, The University of Iowa, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, Psychiatry Research, 2-209 MEB, Iowa City, IA 52242, United States. Tel.: +1 319 353 4885; fax: +1 319 353 3003. E-mail address: sergio-paradiso@uiowa.edu (S. Paradiso). 1 Equally contributed to conceptualization, implementation and written report of this research. Schizophrenia Research 83 (2006) 257 – 267 www.elsevier.com/locate/schres