BACKGROUND
Emotional Recognition (ER) is one of the areas most affected in people with schizophrenia. However, there are no software tools available for the assessment of ER. The interactive software program ‘Feeling Master’ (a cartoon facial recognition tool) was developed to investigate the deficit in facial emotion recognition (FER) with a sample of patients with schizophrenia in a pilot project framework.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the study was to test the usability of ‘Feeling Master’ as a psychotherapeutic interactive gaming tool for the assessment of emotional recognition in people with schizophrenia compared with healthy people, and the relationship between FER, attributional style and theory of mind.
METHODS
Nineteen individuals with schizophrenia and 17 healthy control (HC) subjects completed the ‘Feeling Master’ including five emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and surprise). Regarding the group with schizophrenia they were evaluated with the Personal and Situational Attribution Questionnaire (IPSAQ) and the Hinting Task (Theory of Mind) to evaluate social cognition.
RESULTS
Patients with schizophrenia showed impairments in emotion recognition and they remained slower than the HC in the recognition of each emotion (P<.001). Regarding the impairment in the recognition of each emotion we only found a trend toward significance in error rates on fear discrimination (P=.07). And the correlations between correct response on the ‘Feeling Master’ and the hinting task showed significant values in the correlation of surprise and theory of mind (P=.046).
CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, the study puts forward the usability of the ‘Feeling Master’ in FER for people with schizophrenia. These findings lend support to the notion that difficulties in emotion recognition are more prevalent in people with schizophrenia, and that these are associated with impairment in ToM, suggesting the potential utility of the FER in the rehabilitation of people with schizophrenia.
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