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The influence of prior expectations on facial expression discrimination in schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2012

G. Barbalat ,
M. Rouault ,
N. Bazargani ,
S. Shergill  and
S.-J. Blakemore
G. Barbalat*
Affiliation:
UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK
M. Rouault
Affiliation:
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France
N. Bazargani
Affiliation:
UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK
S. Shergill
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Downing Site, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
S.-J. Blakemore
Affiliation:
UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, UK
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr G. Barbalat, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK. (Email: guillaumebarbalat@gmail.com)
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Abstract

Background

Belief inflexibility is a thinking style observed in patients with schizophrenia, in which patients tend to refute evidence that runs counter to their prior beliefs. This bias has been related to a dominance of prior expectations (prior beliefs) over incoming sensory evidence. In this study we investigated the reliance on prior expectations for the processing of emotional faces in schizophrenia.

Method

Eighteen patients with schizophrenia and 18 healthy controls were presented with sequences of emotional (happy, fearful, angry or neutral) faces. Perceptual decisions were biased towards a particular expression by a specific instruction at the start of each sequence, referred to as the context in which stimuli occurred. Participants were required to judge the emotion on each face and the effect of the context on emotion discrimination was investigated.

Results

For threatening emotions (anger and fear), there was a performance cost for facial expressions that were incongruent with, and perceptually close to, the expression named in the instruction. For example, for angry faces, participants in both groups made more errors and reaction times (RTs) were longer when they were asked to look out for fearful faces compared with the other contexts. This bias against sensory evidence that runs counter to prior information was stronger in the patients, evidenced by a group by context interaction in accuracy and RTs for anger and fear respectively.

Conclusions

Overall, the present data suggest an overdependence on prior expectations for threatening stimuli, reflecting belief inflexibility, in schizophrenia.

Keywords

Belief inflexibilitybias against disconfirmatory evidenceemotion perceptionprior expectationsschizophrenia
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 42 , Issue 11 , November 2012 , pp. 2301 - 2311
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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