Hostname: page-component-86c4fcdb79-hlpjc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-02-03T12:10:34.194Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Comparison of social cognitive functioning in schizophrenia and high functioning autism: more convergence than divergence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2009

S. M. Couture ,
D. L. Penn ,
M. Losh ,
R. Adolphs ,
R. Hurley  and
J. Piven
S. M. Couture*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina-Chapel HillDepartment of Psychology, NC, USA
D. L. Penn
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina-Chapel HillDepartment of Psychology, NC, USA University of North Carolina-Chapel HillDepartment of Psychiatry, NC, USA
M. Losh
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina-Chapel HillDepartment of Psychiatry, NC, USA Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center (NDRC) in Chapel Hill, NC, USA
R. Adolphs
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, USA
R. Hurley
Affiliation:
Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center (NDRC) in Chapel Hill, NC, USA
J. Piven
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina-Chapel HillDepartment of Psychiatry, NC, USA Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center (NDRC) in Chapel Hill, NC, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr S. M. Couture, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland College Park, 1123M Biology-Psychology Building, College Park, MD20742S, USA. (Email: scouture@psyc.umd.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Individuals with schizophrenia and individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) seem to share some social, behavioral and biological features. Although marked impairments in social cognition have been documented in both groups, little empirical work has compared the social cognitive functioning of these two clinical groups.

Method

Forty-four individuals with schizophrenia, 36 with HFA and 41 non-clinical controls completed a battery of social cognitive measures that have been linked previously to specific brain regions.

Results

The results indicate that the individuals with schizophrenia and HFA were both impaired on a variety of social cognitive tasks relative to the non-clinical controls, but did not differ from one another. When individuals with schizophrenia were divided into negative symptom and paranoid subgroups, exploratory analyses revealed that individuals with HFA may be more similar, in terms of the pattern of social cognition impairments, to the negative symptom group than to the paranoia group.

Conclusions

Our findings provide further support for similarities in social cognition deficits between HFA and schizophrenia, which have a variety of implications for future work on gene–brain–behavior relationships.

Keywords

Asperger's syndromehigh-functioning autismschizophreniasocial cognition
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , April 2010 , pp. 569 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abdi, Z, Sharma, T (2004). Social cognition and its neural correlates in schizophrenia and autism. CNS Spectrums 9, 335–343.Google Scholar
Adolphs, R (2002). Recognizing emotion from facial expressions: psychological and neurological mechanisms. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews 1, 21–62.Google Scholar
Adolphs, R, Tranel, D (2003). Amygdala damage impairs emotion recognition from scenes only when they contain facial expressions. Neuropsychologia 41, 1281–1289.Google Scholar
Adolphs, R, Tranel, D, Damasio, AR (1998). The human amygdala in social judgment. Nature 393, 470–474.Google Scholar
Autism Genome Project Consortium, Szatmari, P, Paterson, AD, Zwaigenbaum, L, Roberts, W, Brian, J, Lui, XQ, Vincent, JB, Skaug, JL, Thompson, AP, Senman, L, Feuk, L, Oizn, C, Bryson, SE, Jones, MB, Marshall, CR, Scherer, SW, Vieland, VJ, Bartlett, C, Mangin, LV, Goedken, R, Segre, A, Pericak-Vance, MA, Cuccaro, ML, Gilbert, JR, Wright, HH, Abramson, RK, Betancur, C, Bourgeron, T, Gillberg, C, Leboyer, M, Buxbaum, JD, David, KL, Hollander, E, Silverman, JM, Hallmayer, J, Lotspeich, L, Sutcliffe, JS, Haines, JL, Folstein, SE, Piven, J, Wassink, TH, Sheffield, V, Geschwind, DH, Bucan, M, Brown, WT, Cantor, RM, Constantino, JN, Gilliam, TC, Herbert, M, Lejonchere, C, Ledbetter, DH, Lese-Martin, C, Miller, J, Nelson, S, Samango-Sprouse, CA, Spence, S, State, M, Tanzi, RE, Coon, H, Dawson, G, Devlin, B, Estes, A, Flodman, P, Klei, L, McMahon, WM, Minshew, N, Munson, J, Korvatska, E, Rodier, PM, Schellenberg, GD, Smith, M, Spence, MA, Stodgell, C, Tepper, PG, Wijsman, EM, Yu, CE, Rogé, B, Montoulan, C, Wittemeyer, K, Poustka, A, Felder, B, Klauck, SM, Schuster, C, Poustka, F, Bölte, S, Feineis-Matthews, S, Herbrecht, E, Schmötzer, G, Tsiantis, J, Papanikolaou, K, Maestrini, E, Bacchelli, E, Blasi, F, Carone, S, Toma, C, Van Engeland, H, de Jonge, M, Kemner, C, Koop, F, Langemeijer, M, Hijmans, C, Staal, WG, Baird, G, Bolton, PF, Rutter, ML, Weisblatt, E, Green, J, Aldred, C, Wilkinson, JA, Pickles, A, Le Couteur, A, Berney, T, McConachie, H, Bailey, AJ, Francis, K, Honeyman, G, Hutchinson, A, Parr, JR, Wallace, S, Monaco, AP, Barnby, G, Kobayashi, K, Lamb, JA, Sousa, I, Sykes, N, Cook, EH, Guter, SJ, Leventhal, BL, Salt, J, Lord, C, Corsello, C, Hus, V, Weeks, DE, Volkmar, F, Tauber, M, Fombonne, E, Shih, A, Meyer, KJ (2007). Mapping autism risk loci using genetic linkage and chromosomal rearrangements. Nature Genetics 39, 319–328.Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S, O'Riordan, M, Stone, V, Jones, R, Plaisted, K (1999 a). Recognition of faux pas by normally developing children with Asperger syndrome or high functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 29, 407–418.Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S, Ring, H, Wheelwright, S, Bullmore, E, Brammer, M, Simmons, A, Williams, SCR (1999 b). Social intelligence in the normal and autistic brain: an fMRI study. European Journal of Neuroscience 11, 1891–1998.Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, S, Wheelwright, S, Hill, J, Raste, Y, Plumb, I (2001). The ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Test revised version: a study with normal adults and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 42, 241–251.Google Scholar
Bellugi, U, Adolphs, R, Cassady, C, Chiles, M (1999). Towards the neural basis for hypersociability in a genetic syndrome. Neuroreport 10, 1653–1657.Google Scholar
Bölte, S, Poustka, F (2003). The recognition of facial affect in autistic and schizophrenic subjects and their first-degree relatives. Psychological Medicine 33, 907–915.Google Scholar
Bonda, E, Petrides, M, Ostry, D, Evans, A (1996). Specific involvement of human parietal systems and the amygdala in the perception of biological motion. Journal of Neuroscience 16, 3737–3744.Google Scholar
Brune, M (2005). ‘Theory of mind’ in schizophrenia: a review of the literature. Schizophrenia Bulletin 31, 21–42.Google Scholar
Brunet, E, Sarfati, Y, Hardy-Boyle, M (2003). Reasoning about physical causality and other's intentions in schizophrenia. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry 8, 129–139.Google Scholar
Bryson, G, Bell, MD, Lysaker, PH (1997). Affect recognition in schizophrenia: a function of global impairment or a specific cognitive deficit. Psychiatry Research 71, 105–113.Google Scholar
Celani, G, Battacchi, MW, Arcidiacono, L (1999). The understanding of the emotional meaning of facial expressions in people with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 29, 57–66.Google Scholar
Couture, SM, Penn, DL, Addington, J, Woods, SW, Perkins, DO (2008). Assessment of social judgments and complex mental states in the early phases of psychosis. Schizophrenia Research 100, 237–241.Google Scholar
Couture, SM, Penn, DL, Roberts, DL (2006). The functional significance of social cognition in schizophrenia: a review. Schizophrenia Bulletin 32, S44–S63.Google Scholar
Craig, JS, Hatton, C, Craig, FB, Bentall, RP (2004). Persecutory beliefs, attributions and theory of mind: comparison of patients with paranoid delusions, Asperger's syndrome and healthy controls. Schizophrenia Research 69, 29–33.Google Scholar
Crespi, B, Badcock, C (2008). Psychosis and autism as diametrical disorders of the social brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31, 241–320.Google Scholar
Edwards, J, Jackson, H, Pattison, PE (2002). Emotion recognition via facial expression and affective prosody in schizophrenia: a methodological review. Clinical Psychology Review 22, 789–832.Google Scholar
First, MB, Spitzer, RL, Gibbon, M, Williams, JBW (1995). Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders – Patient Edition (SCID-I/P, Version 2.0). Biometrics Research Department, New York State Psychiatric Institute: New York.Google Scholar
Friedman, JM, Baross, A, Delaney, AD, Ally, A, Arbour, L, Asano, J, Bailey, DK, Barber, S, Birch, P, Brown-John, M, Cao, M, Chan, S, Charest, DL, Farnoud, N, Fernandes, N, Flibotte, S, Go, A, Gibson, WT, Holt, RA, Jones, SJM, Kennedy, GC, Krzywinski, M, Langlois, S, Li, HI, McGillivray, BC, Nayar, T, Pugh, TJ, Rajcan-Separovic, E, Schein, JE, Schnerch, A, Siddiqui, A, Van Allen, MI, Wilson, G, Yong, S, Zahir, F, Eydoux, P, Marra, MA (2006). Oligonucleotide microarray analysis of genomic imbalance in children with mental retardation. American Journal Human Genetics 79, 500–513.Google Scholar
Frith, CD, Corcoran, R (1996). Exploring ‘theory of mind’ in people with schizophrenia. Psychological Medicine 26, 521–530.Google Scholar
Gottesman, II, Gould, TD (2003). The endophenotype concept in psychiatry: etymology and strategic intentions. American Journal of Psychiatry 160, 636–645.Google Scholar
Grant, C, Addington, J, Addington, D (2001). Social functioning in first- and multi-episode schizophrenia. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 46, 746–749.Google Scholar
Green, J, Gilchrist, A, Burton, D, Cox, A (2000). Social and psychiatric functioning in adolescents with Asperger syndrome compared with conduct disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 30, 279–293.Google Scholar
Heberlein, AS, Adolphs, R, Tranel, D, Damasio, H (2004). Cortical regions for judgments of emotions and personality traits from point-light walkers. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16, 1143–1158.Google Scholar
Herold, R, Tenyi, T, Lenard, K, Trixler, M (2002). Theory of mind deficit in people with schizophrenia during remission. Psychological Medicine 32, 1125–1129.Google Scholar
Kaland, N, Moller-Neilsen, A, Callesen, K, Mortensen, EL, Gottlieb, D, Smith, L (2002). A new ‘advanced’ test of theory of mind: evidence from children and adolescents with Asperger syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 43, 517–528.Google Scholar
Kaufman, AS (1994). Intelligent Testing with the WISC-III. Wiley: New York.Google Scholar
Kay, SR, Fiszbein, A, Opler, LA (1987). The positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS) for schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin 13, 261–276.Google Scholar
Lord, C, Rutter, M, LeCouteur, A (1994). Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised: a revised version of a diagnostic interview for caregivers of individuals with possible pervasive developmental disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 24, 659–685.Google Scholar
Losh, M, Adolphs, A, Poe, MD, Couture, S, Penn, D, Baranek, GT, Piven, J (2009). Neuropsychological profile of autism and the broad autism phenotype. Archives of General Psychiatry 66, 518–526.Google Scholar
Loveland, KA, Tunali-Kotoski, B, Chen, YR, Ortegon, J, Pearson, DA, Brelsford, KA, Gibbs, MC (1997). Emotion recognition in autism: verbal and nonverbal information. Development and Psychopathology 9, 579–593.Google Scholar
Marx, J (2007). Evidence linking DISC1 gene to mental illness builds. Science 318, 1062–1063.Google Scholar
Muris, P, Steerneman, P, Meesters, C, Merckelbach, H, Horselenberg, R, van den Hogen, T, van Dongen, L (1999). The TOM test: a new instrument for assessing theory of mind in normal children and children with pervasive developmental disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 29, 67–80.Google Scholar
Nettle, D, Liddle, B (2008). Agreeableness is related to social-cognitive, but not social-perceptual theory of mind. European Journal of Psychiatry 22, 323–335.Google Scholar
Penn, DL, Combs, DR, Ritchie, M, Francis, J, Cassisi, J, Morris, S, Townsend, M (2000). Emotion recognition in schizophrenia: further investigation of generalized versus specific deficit models. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 109, 512–516.Google Scholar
Phillips, ML, Drevets, WC, Rauch, SL, Lane, RD (2003). Neurobiology of emotion perception. I: The neural basis of normal emotion perception. Biological Psychiatry 54, 504–514.Google Scholar
Pilowsky, T, Yirmiya, N, Arbelle, S, Mozes, T (2000). Theory of mind abilities of children with schizophrenia, children with autism, and normally developing children. Schizophrenia Research 42, 145–155.Google Scholar
Pinkham, AE, Hopfinger, JB, Pelphrey, KA, Piven, J, Penn, DL (2008). Neural bases for impaired social cognition in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders. Schizophrenia Research 99, 164–175.Google Scholar
Rutherford, MD, Baron-Cohen, S, Wheelwright, S (2002). Reading the mind in the voice: a study with normal adults and adults with Asperger syndrome and high functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 32, 189–194.Google Scholar
Sabbagh, MA (2004). Recognizing and reasoning about mental states: understanding orbitofrontal contributions to theory of mind in autism. Brain and Cognition 55, 209–219.Google Scholar
Sasson, N, Tsuchiya, N, Hurley, R, Couture, S, Penn, DL, Adolphs, R, Piven, J (2007). Orienting to social stimuli differentiates social cognitive impairment in autism and schizophrenia. Neuropsychologia 45, 2580–2588.Google Scholar
Sheitman, BB, Kraus, JE, Bodfish, JW, Carmel, H (2003). Are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia consistent with an autistic spectrum illness? Schizophrenia Research 69, 119–120.Google Scholar
Sprong, M, Schothorst, P, Vos, E, Hox, J, Engeland, HV (2007). Theory of mind in schizophrenia: meta-analysis. British Journal of Psychiatry 191, 5–13.Google Scholar
Van Lancker, DR, Cornelius, C, Kreiman, J (1989). Recognition of emotional-prosodic meanings in speech by autistic, schizophrenic, and normal children. Developmental Neuropsychology 5, 207–226.Google Scholar
Winston, JS, Strange, BA, O'Doherty, J, Dolan, RJ (2002). Automatic and intentional brain responses during evaluation of trustworthiness of faces. Nature Neuroscience 5, 277–283.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D (1999). Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) Manual. Psychological Corporation: San Antonio, TX.Google Scholar