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Social Cognition and Neurocognition in Schizophrenia and Healthy Controls: Intercorrelations of Performance and Effects of Manipulations Aimed at Increasing Task Difficulty.

ABSTRACT: Social cognition (SC) and neurocognition appear to predict different aspects of functional outcome in people with schizophrenia. However, the correlations between performance on these domains have not been tested extensively and compared cross-diagnostically with healthy controls. Further, some social cognitive measures appeared to have potential ceiling effects, particularly for healthy people, in previous research, so increasing their difficulty is of interest. In this paper we report on two studies wherein we examined the correlations between neurocognitive ability and performance on SC tests. In the first study the correlations between measures of social perception, emotion processing, and theory of mind and performance on a brief neuropsychological (NP) assessment were examined in 179 schizophrenia (SCZ) patients and 104 healthy controls (HC). In the second study, we instructed participants to perform a subset of the tasks as rapidly as possible in order to increase task difficulty, and we examined the effects of those instructions on task difficulty, task psychometrics, and correlations between SC and NP tests in 218 SCZ patients and 154 HC. In the first study, both HC and SCZ manifested a domain specific pattern of correlation between NP and SC test performance. Controlling for group differences in NP performance did not eliminate SC performance differences between the groups. In the second study, no differences in task performance, intercorrelations other SC tests, or test-retest stability were induced by the difficulty manipulation in the samples who performed the tasks with speed demands compared to the performance of the previous sample. These data suggest that simple manipulations aimed at increasing task difficulty may not have the desired effect and that despite consistent correlations between SC and NP test performance, impairments in social cognitive functioning are not fully explained by NP performance deficits.

SUBMITTER: Deckler E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6091232 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Social Cognition and Neurocognition in Schizophrenia and Healthy Controls: Intercorrelations of Performance and Effects of Manipulations Aimed at Increasing Task Difficulty.

Deckler Elizabeth E Hodgins Gabrielle E GE Pinkham Amy E AE Penn David L DL Harvey Philip D PD

Frontiers in psychiatry 20180807

Social cognition (SC) and neurocognition appear to predict different aspects of functional outcome in people with schizophrenia. However, the correlations between performance on these domains have not been tested extensively and compared cross-diagnostically with healthy controls. Further, some social cognitive measures appeared to have potential ceiling effects, particularly for healthy people, in previous research, so increasing their difficulty is of interest. In this paper we report on two s ...[more]

PMID: 30131729

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Project description:IntroductionIn this study we assessed the contribution of psychopathology, including the two domains of negative symptoms (motivational deficit and expressive deficit), processing speed as an index of neurocognition, and emotion recognition, as an index of social cognition, to poor functional outcomes in people with schizophrenia.MethodsThe Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale was used to evaluate positive symptoms and disorganization and the Brief Negative Symptom Scale to assess negative symptoms. The Symbol Coding and the Trail Making Test A and B were used to rate processing speed and the Facial Emotion Identification Test to assess emotion recognition. Functional outcome was assessed with the Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP). Regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of functional outcome. Mediation analyses was used to investigate whether social cognition and negative symptom domains fully or partially mediated the impact of processing speed on functional outcome.ResultsOne hundred and fifty subjects from 8 different European centers were recruited. Our data showed that the expressive deficit predicted global functioning and together with motivational deficit fully mediated the effects of neurocognition on it. Motivational deficit was a predictor of personal and social functioning and fully mediated neurocognitive impairment effects on the same outcome. Both motivational deficit and neurocognitive impairment predicted socially useful activities, and the emotion recognition domain of social cognition partially mediated the impact of neurocognitive deficits on this outcome.ConclusionsOur results indicate that pathways to functional outcomes are specific for different domains of real-life functioning and that negative symptoms and social cognition mediate the impact of neurocognitive deficits on different domains of functioning. Our results suggest that both negative symptoms and social cognition should be targeted by psychosocial interventions to enhance the functional impact of neurocognitive remediation.

Dataset Information

Social Cognition and Neurocognition in Schizophrenia and Healthy Controls: Intercorrelations of Performance and Effects of Manipulations Aimed at Increasing Task Difficulty.

Publications

Social Cognition and Neurocognition in Schizophrenia and Healthy Controls: Intercorrelations of Performance and Effects of Manipulations Aimed at Increasing Task Difficulty.

Similar Datasets

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