From “under” to “over” social cognition in schizophrenia: Is there distinct profiles of impairments according to negative and positive symptoms?

Publication date: March 2019Source: Schizophrenia Research: Cognition, Volume 15Author(s): Elodie Peyroux, Zelda Prost, Charlotte Danset-Alexandre, Lindsay Brenugat-Herne, Isabelle Carteau-Martin, Baptiste Gaudelus, Célia Jantac, David Attali, Isabelle Amado, Jérôme Graux, Emmanuelle Houy-Durand, Julien Plasse, Nicolas FranckAbstractInteractions between social cognition and symptoms of schizophrenia have been investigated, but mostly component by component. Here we tested the assumption that two categories of deficits exist depending on clinical profiles, one corresponding to a defect in social cognition – “under-social cognition” – and one corresponding to excessive attributions leading to social cognitive impairments – “over-social cognition”. To conduct the investigation, we performed a Hierarchical Clustering Analysis using positive and negative symptoms in seventy patients with schizophrenia and we compared the clusters obtained to a group of healthy controls on social cognitive measures. We distinguished two social cognitive profiles based on prevailing symptoms for emotion processes and Theory of Mind. Actually, patients with negative symptoms showed lower performances in emotion recognition task than both those with positive symptoms and controls. Concerning Theory of Mind, patients with positive symptoms had a significant tendency to make over interpretative errors than both patients with negative symptoms and controls. For other processes assessed, ...
Source: Schizophrenia Research: Cognition - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research