Polygraphic Evaluation of Laughing and Smiling in Schizophrenic and Depressive Patients

1997 ◽  
Vol 85 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1291-1302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sakae Sakamoto ◽  
Ken Nameta ◽  
Tatsuhito Kawasaki ◽  
Koh Yamashita ◽  
Akira Shimizu
Keyword(s):  
Social Signals ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Paranoid Type ◽  
Polygraphic Recordings ◽  
Polygraphic Recording ◽  
Depressive Patients ◽  
Normal Controls

Polygraphic recordings was used to assess laughing and smiling, and results were compared for 34 normal controls, 24 schizophrenic patients, and 15 depressive patients. The schizophrenic and the depressive patients showed reduced “laughs of pleasure,” i.e., laughing in reaction to a comic video assessed by laughing score; however, the depressive patients in remission showed the same laughing reaction as the controls. “Smiles as social signals” during interviews were reduced for the schizophrenic patients but remained for the depressive patients. There was a tendency for greater reduction of both laughing and smiling in disorganized-versus paranoid-type schizophrenia, suggesting that the disturbance of affect might be more severe in the former. These results show the possibility that polygraphic recording of laughing and smiling might be a useful method for investigating the disturbance of affect in schizophrenic and depressive patients.

Stereotyped responding by schizophrenic patients on a two-choice guessing task

1983 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 779-786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. Frith ◽  
D. John Done
Keyword(s):  
Negative Symptoms ◽  
Senile Dementia ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Severe Restriction ◽  
Chronic Patients ◽  
Manic Depressive ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
The Right ◽  
Depressive Patients ◽  
Normal Controls

SynopsisOn each of a sequence of trials subjects had to guess whether a cross would appear on the left or the right side of a computer screen. The sequence of cross positions was random. Normal controls, manic-depressive patients and patients with senile dementia produced relatively random sequences of responses, as did acute schizophrenic patients with positive symptoms. Acute schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms and chronic patients produced more stereotyped sequences with many response alternations (LRLR). Chronic schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms and intellectual deterioration (defect state) produced very stereotyped sequences with many preservations (LLLL). This severe restriction of response sequences is similar to that shown by animals after treatment with amphetamine. It is suggested that it is due to an impairment of a higher order control process which normally inhibits the repetition of sequences of behaviour when these have proved inappropriate.

The self and schizophrenia: a cognitive approach

2003 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Nieznanski
Keyword(s):  
Normal Subjects ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Self Schema ◽  
Persons With Schizophrenia ◽  
Basic Features ◽  
Trait Words ◽  
Patients Experience ◽  
Normal Controls

The aim of the study was to explore the basic features of self-schema in persons with schizophrenia. Thirty two schizophrenic patients and 32 normal controls were asked to select personality trait words from a check-list that described themselves, themselves as they were five years ago, and what most people are like. Compared with the control group, participants from the experimental group chose significantly more adjectives that were common to descriptions of self and others, and significantly less that were common to self and past-self descriptions. These results suggest that schizophrenic patients experience their personality as changing over time much more than do healthy subjects. Moreover, their self-representation seems to be less differentiated from others-representation and less clearly defined than in normal subjects.

Measures of anhedonia and hedonic responses to sucrose in depressive and schizophrenic patients in comparison with healthy subjects

1998 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 303-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
I Berlin ◽  
L Givry-Steiner ◽  
Y Lecrubier ◽  
AJ Puech
Keyword(s):  
Major Depression ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Sweet Taste ◽  
Taste Perception ◽  
Social Anhedonia ◽  
Perception Threshold ◽  
Sucrose Solutions ◽  
Scale Scores ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Depressive Patients

SummaryAnhedonia may be considered as a transnosological feature of depression and schizophrenia. The aim of the present study was to assess hedonic responses to sucrose solutions and sweet taste perception threshold in patients with major depression and in schizophrenic patients in comparison with healthy subjects (matched for age and gender with depressive patients), and to compare these responses to evaluations by the Physical and Social Anhedonia scale of Chapman and the Pleasure Scale of Fawcett, generally used to quantify anhedonia. Hedonic responses to sucrose solutions were similar in patients with major depression (n = 20), schizophrenia (n = 20), and healthy controls (n = 20). Sweet taste perception threshold was significantly higher in depressive patients than in controls. Hedonic response to sucrose was inversely correlated with physical Anhedonia Scores and sweet taste perception threshold with Pleasure Scale scores. Measures of hedonia/anhedonia were not related with the intensity of depression or anxiety as measured by the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and Hamilton Anxiety Scale, respectively. In 11 depressed patients hospitalised for 17 to 33 days, neither hedonic ratings to sucrose solutions, sweet taste perception threshold, Physical, Social Anhedonia scores nor Pleasure Scale scores were modified in spite of substantial decrease in MADRS or Hamilton Anxiety scores. Hedonic responses to sucrose solutions and sweet taste perception threshold may be used as complementary evaluation to quantify anhedonia.

Comparative behavioral and biochemical effects of tranylcypromine and cysteine on normal controls and schizophrenic patients

Life Sciences ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
pp. 1021-1032 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Narasimhachari ◽  
B. Heller ◽  
J. Spaide ◽  
L. Haskovec ◽  
M. Fujimori ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biochemical Effects ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Normal Controls

Negative Features, Retrieval Processes and Verbal Fluency in Schizophrenia

1993 ◽  
Vol 163 (6) ◽  
pp. 769-775 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi A. Allen ◽  
Peter F. Liddle ◽  
Christopher D. Frith
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Chronic Schizophrenic ◽  
Retrieval Processes ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Normal Controls

Twenty chronic schizophrenic patients, ten matched normal controls and nine depressed controls performed categorical verbal fluency tasks for three minutes each on five separate occasions. On each occasion the schizophrenic patients generated significantly fewer words than the controls. Comparison of the different occasions showed that the schizophrenic patients had as many words available in their inner lexicons but were inefficient in retrieving them. The schizophrenic patients also generated fewer clusters of related words and more words outside the specified category. Reduced ability to generate words while the lexicon remained intact was more marked in patients with negative features. Patients with incoherence, in contrast, were more likely to produce inappropriate words. We propose that both poverty of speech and incoherence of speech reflect problems in the retrieval of words from the lexicon. To cope with these problems patients with poverty of speech terminate their search prematurely while the patients with incoherence commit errors in selecting words for output.

Perception of threat in schizophrenics with persecutory delusions: an investigation using visual scan paths

2000 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. L. PHILLIPS ◽  
C. SENIOR ◽  
A. S. DAVID
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Persecutory Delusions ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Perception Of Threat ◽  
Scan Path ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Scan Paths ◽  
On Line ◽  
Biased Processing ◽  
Normal Controls

Background. Cognitive theories of persecutory delusions in schizophrenia include increased attention to threat and reduced re-appraisal of information during decision-making.Methods. We employed visual scan path measurements, an ‘on-line’ marker of attention, in schizophrenic patients with persecutory delusions (N = 19), negative symptom- and medication-matched patients with non-persecutory delusions (N = 8), and normal controls (N = 18). Stimuli comprised black-and-white photographs of social scenes rated as depicting either neutral, ambiguous or overtly threatening activity. Foreground areas containing salient information with regard to the overall scene were rated independently as either threatening or non-threatening in both the overtly threatening and ambiguous scenes; all foreground areas were rated as non-threatening in the neutral scene.Results. For the ambiguous scene only, schizophrenics with persecutory delusions directed gaze to less threatening areas, and, for all three scenes, demonstrated reduced re-appraisal of information compared with both control groups. All subjects showed similar viewing strategies for the overtly threatening and neutral scenes.Conclusions. These findings suggest abnormal information gathering and evaluation in schizophrenics, specifically related to the presence of persecutory delusions. In particular, the results point to biased processing of contextual information in an ambiguous setting in these patients, and perhaps perception of threat in inappropriate places.

A census study of mental illness in Samsø

1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Nielsen ◽  
Jørgen Achton Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Depressive Disorders ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Psychiatric Service ◽  
Manic Depressive ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Depressive Patients

SynopsisCensus data from the Danish island of Samsø have provided information on all but 20% of the population. Fifty per cent of the population with past or present mental illness had been referred to the psychiatric service during the 18-year-period 1957–74; the proportion varied from 85 % for patients with psychoses (100 % for schizophrenic patients, and 90% for manic-depressive patients) to 43 % with non-psychotic disorders. The frequency of past and present mental illness was 24 %, higher for women with manic-depressive disorders, psychogenic (reactive) psychoses, and neuroses. The possible reasons for these and other findings are discussed.

Semantic memory is both impaired and anomalous in schizophrenia

1994 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Y. H. Chen ◽  
A. J. Wilkins ◽  
P. J. McKenna
Keyword(s):  
Reaction Time ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Reaction Time Task ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
Semantic Relationship ◽  
Conceptual Category ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Speed And Accuracy ◽  
Normal Controls

SynopsisThe integrity of semantic memory in schizophrenia was examined in a reaction time task requiring subjects to verify words as members or non-members of a conceptual category, where the words differed in their degree of semantic relationship to the category. Compared to matched normal controls, 28 schizophrenic patients were impaired on the task, showing slower responses in all conditions. In addition, their performance was anomalous in that they took longest to respond to items that were outside the category but semantically related to it, in contrast to the controls who took the longest to respond to ambiguous words at the borderline of the category. The pattern of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses of the patients was anomalous in a similar way. In both speed and accuracy of responding, the findings indicate that there is an outward shift of semantic category boundaries in schizophrenia.

Visual flicker in depression: response criteria, confidence ratings and response times

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph E. Herskovic ◽  
Mitchell L. Kietzman ◽  
Samuel Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Signal Detection ◽  
Response Times ◽  
The Other ◽  
Response Criterion ◽  
Sensory Sensitivity ◽  
Major Depressive ◽  
Depressed Patients ◽  
Depressive Patients ◽  
Normal Controls ◽  
Confidence Ratings

SynopsisDifferences in response criterion and sensory sensitivity to visual flicker among major depressive patients, dysthymic patients, and normal controls were investigated. Also, signal detection confidence ratings and response times were compared. The results indicated that major depressive patients responded more conservatively (i.e. were less willing to respond ‘flicker’) than either of the other groups. The groups did not differ significantly on a criterion free measure of flicker sensitivity. The major conclusions are: (1) previously reported visual flicker differences between depressed patients and normal controls were probably due to the more conservative response criterion of the patients and not to flicker sensitivity differences between groups; and (2) confidence ratings and response times yield similar conclusions with respect to visual flicker sensitivity and response criterion. Therefore, interpretations concerning a sensory or perceptual deficit in depression must take into account the differences in response criterion between depressed patients and normal controls.

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