Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry (생물정신의학)

The Korean Society of Biological Psychiatry (대한생물정신의학회)
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Alexithymia and the Recognition of Facial Emotion in Schizophrenic Patients

정신분열병 환자에서의 감정표현불능증과 얼굴정서인식결핍

  • Noh, Jin-Chan (Department of Psychiatry, Gongju National Hospital) ;
  • Park, Sung-Hyouk (Department of Psychiatry, Chookryoung Evangelical Hospital) ;
  • Kim, Kyung-Hee (Department of Psychiatry, Gongju National Hospital) ;
  • Kim, So-Yul (Department of Psychiatry, Gongju National Hospital) ;
  • Shin, Sung-Woong (Department of Psychiatry, Chookryoung Evangelical Hospital) ;
  • Lee, Koun-Seok (Department of Psychiatry, Gongju National Hospital)
  • Received : 2011.06.03
  • Accepted : 2011.08.24
  • Published : 2011.11.30
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Abstract

Objectives Schizophrenic patients have been shown to be impaired in both emotional self-awareness and recognition of others' facial emotions. Alexithymia refers to the deficits in emotional self-awareness. The relationship between alexithymia and recognition of others' facial emotions needs to be explored to better understand the characteristics of emotional deficits in schizophrenic patients. Methods Thirty control subjects and 31 schizophrenic patients completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20-Korean version (TAS-20K) and facial emotion recognition task. The stimuli in facial emotion recognition task consist of 6 emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and neutral). Recognition accuracy was calculated within each emotion category. Correlations between TAS-20K and recognition accuracy were analyzed. Results The schizophrenic patients showed higher TAS-20K scores and lower recognition accuracy compared with the control subjects. The schizophrenic patients did not demonstrate any significant correlations between TAS-20K and recognition accuracy, unlike the control subjects. Conclusions The data suggest that, although schizophrenia may impair both emotional self-awareness and recognition of others' facial emotions, the degrees of deficit can be different between emotional self-awareness and recognition of others' facial emotions. This indicates that the emotional deficits in schizophrenia may assume more complex features.

Keywords

References

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