The purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between emotion perception and both psychopathology and cognitive functioning in a group of Greek patients with schizophrenia. Thirty-five patients with schizophrenia were assessed with computerized tests of emotion perception, using visual faces (Kinney's Affect Matching Test, KAMT), prosody (Affective Prosody Test, APT), and visual everyday scenarios (Fantie's Cartoon Test, FCT), as well as a facial recognition test (Kinney's Identity Matching Test, KIMT). The patients were also evaluated with the symptoms dimensions derived from the PANSS (positive, negative, cognitive, depression, and excitement) and a battery of neuropsychological tests measuring executive functions, attention, working memory, verbal and visual memory, visuospatial ability, and visual scanning/psychomotor speed. The three emotion perception and face recognition tests correlated significantly with each other. The KAMT was significantly related to the cognitive symptoms dimension of the PANSS and executive functions. The FCT was significantly related to level of education and attention. Finally, the APT was significantly related to the cognitive symptoms dimension, executive functions, and attention. Our findings regarding the significant relationships of affect perception, both facial and vocal, as well as in everyday scenarios, with several cognitive abilities support the notion that deficits in decoding affective information in schizophrenia could be attributed to impairment in more basic neurocognitive domains.

The authors aimed to explore schizophrenia patients' ability to perceive affective prosody. Specifically, certain emotions that may be more troublesome for patients and possible gender differences in prosody perception were assessed. Thirty six schizophrenia patients and 32 age-, education-, and gender-matched healthy comparison subjects assessed on an affective prosody test were examined. Patients were impaired on recognition of affective prosody overall, and their difficulties with prosody perception may be attributed to those emotions with negative valence, specifically anger and sadness. Findings revealed that only male patients were impaired on prosody perception. Deficits in the perception of affective prosody were principally evident in emotions with negative valence and male patients with schizophrenia. Future studies should explore the influence of these deficits on social and interpersonal functioning more directly.

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The purpose in undertaking the present study was to investigate humor appreciation in patients with schizophrenia. Moreover, we sought to explore the potential relationship of humor appreciation with measures of psychopathology and cognitive functioning among the patients. Thirty-six patients with schizophrenia were compared with 31 normal controls matched for age, sex, and education on a computerized test comprising captionless cartoons: Penn's Humor Appreciation Test (PHAT). The patients were also evaluated on the symptom dimensions derived from the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (positive symptoms, negative symptoms, cognitive symptoms, depression, and excitement), as well as a battery of neuropsychological tests measuring executive functions, attention, working memory, verbal and visual memory, visuospatial ability, and psychomotor speed. Patients with schizophrenia had significantly lower scores on the PHAT than normal controls. The patients' performance on the PHAT correlated with scores on Penn's Continuous Performance Test, the Stroop Color-Word Test, and the phonological subscale of the Greek Verbal Fluency Test. Our findings indicated impaired humor appreciation among patients with schizophrenia. The relationship found between the appreciation of captionless cartoons involved an incongruous detail and performance on a broad neuropsychological battery suggested that the deficit in humor appreciation in schizophrenia could be attributed to impairment in more basic neurocognitive domains, namely, selective and sustained attention as well as phonological word fluency.