ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Disturbance in self-experience has been considered to be a core feature of schizophrenia. Evidence from mirror face-recognition tasks supports the connection between self-face recognition and self-awareness which is a part of self-experience. The aim of this study was to investigate the self-other boundary recognition using morphed face pictures in patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Twenty-one patients with schizophrenia and twenty-three healthy controls completed the self-face recognition task that consisted of various morphed pictures. Participant's own picture was morphed with each of three different, unknown, gender-matched facial identities in steps of 10% ; each pair producing 11 images with graded blending of facial features. Thirty-three images in total were randomly presented as stimuli in a run, which was repeated three times. Participants were instructed to choose whether the stimulus was self-face or not. RESULTS: Self-face proportion was significantly lower in the schizophrenia group at both recognition start point I and II (33.33% vs. 53.04%, p<0.001 ; 61.43% vs. 70.87%, p=0.01, respectively). Using the mean value of each recognition start point in the control group, we calculated the difference in self-face proportion for each individual with schizophrenia. There was a significant correlation between the degree of this difference and total Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) score at recognition start point I (r=0.507, p=0.019). CONCLUSION: The difference in self-other boundary recognition in this study may account for self-disturbance of schizophrenia. Its correlation with SANS total score may reflect the shared nature of persistent disturbance between the disturbance in self-experience and the negative symptom.
Subject(s)
Humans , SchizophreniaABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Autobiographical memory (ABM) is a special type of episodic memory, containing events that have occurred in a personal life. Overgeneral tendency of ABM refers to the retrieval of memory with only general and categorical descriptions rather than specific events. ABM specificity in depression and posttraumatic stress disorder is a robust finding with relation to cognitive vulnerability, affect regulation, problem-solving ability. It is also implicated in bipolar disorder with frequent relapses. In this study, we investigated whether ABM specificity was related to manic or euthymic mood states in patients with bipolar disorder. METHODS: Forty bipolar patients with manic and euthymic episodes and 25 healthy controls participated in this study. Prompted by 5 positively and 5 negatively valenced emotional cue words, each participant was instructed to recall positive or negative memories and describe them in detail. The one-way ANOVA was used to compare ABM scores and post-hoc analyses were done. RESULTS: Comapred to the healthy persons, the bipolar patients reported significantly more general than specific negative memories in both manic and euthymic episodes (p = 0.003). However, there was no significant difference between manic and euthymic patients (p = 0.074). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that overgeneral tendency of negative ABM may be a trait abnormality in bipolar disorder. Moreover, this phenomenon might be related to underlying cognitive deficits or affect regulation irrespective of the mood state.