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.

We developed a multiple-form list learning test appropriate for use with the Greek population and generated norms for clinical and research use. This task, the Greek Verbal Learning Test (GVLT), was based on the California Verbal Learning Test. We administered the standard version (Form A) to a sample of 354 healthy individuals, as well as two alternative forms (B and C) to a subgroup of the initial sample. Performance on the three forms was equivalent, and each test presented excellent internal consistency. We found good sensitivity and specificity in the testãs (Form A) utility in differentiating individuals with schizophrenia (n = 50) and individuals with traumatic brain injury (n = 53) from healthy adults. A multiple regression analysis indicated that age, education and sex predicted performance. Regression-based norms are also provided. Taken together, these data provide preliminary support for the reliability and construct validity of the GVLT.

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We investigated social cognition and theory of mind in patients with schizophrenia and in patients with frontotemporal dementia in order to elucidate the cognitive mechanisms involved in the breakdown of these skills in psychiatric and neurological patients. Our tasks included videotaped scenarios of social interactions depicting sincere, sarcastic and paradoxical remarks, as well as lies. We found impaired performance of the schizophrenia group on all theory of mind conditions despite their intact understanding of sincere statements. In contrast, the FTD group performed poorly only when they had to rely on paralinguistic cues indicating sarcasm or lies, and not on paradoxical remarks or sarcasm when given additional verbal cues. Our findings suggest that, while current deficits in social and interpersonal functioning in patients with FTD may reflect a decrement in previously acquired skills, similar deficits in patients with schizophrenia may reflect an altogether inadequately learned process.