Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Many patients with schizophrenia demonstrate an impaired recognition of emotions as well as thought disorder. However, there may be a correlation between these core impairment domains of schizophrenia. The objective of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the perception of emotion and thought disturbance in schizophrenia. METHODS: The sample consisted of 53 patients with schizophrenia and 38 healthy controls. The Emotions Battery of the University of Pennsylvania Computerised Neuropsychological Test Battery (PennCNP) and the Thought Language Index (TLI) were used to examine the association of the perception of emotion and thought disorders. RESULTS: Statistical analyses revealed that patients with schizophrenia had poor performance on the recognition of happy, sad, fear, anger, and neutral facial emotion expressions compared to controls. Severity of negative and disorganisation symptoms in schizophrenia patients was found to be related to negative emotions (fear, anger, etc.). Moreover, results revealed that disorganised thoughts are related to misidentification of positive emotions (happy). CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggested that emotion perception disturbances could be associated with disorganised thought in schizophrenia. Impaired recognition and misinterpretation of positive emotions may contribute to the occurrence of disorganised thought.