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. 2018 Nov 8:15:21-29.
doi: 10.1016/j.scog.2018.10.001. eCollection 2019 Mar.

From "under" to "over" social cognition in schizophrenia: Is there distinct profiles of impairments according to negative and positive symptoms?

Elodie Peyroux  1   2 , Zelda Prost  1 , Charlotte Danset-Alexandre  3   4 , Lindsay Brenugat-Herne  3   4 , Isabelle Carteau-Martin  5   6 , Baptiste Gaudelus  1 , Célia Jantac  4 , David Attali  3   4 , Isabelle Amado  3   4 , Jérôme Graux  5   6 , Emmanuelle Houy-Durand  6   7 , Julien Plasse  1 , Nicolas Franck  1   8
Affiliations

From "under" to "over" social cognition in schizophrenia: Is there distinct profiles of impairments according to negative and positive symptoms?

Elodie Peyroux et al. Schizophr Res Cogn. .

Abstract

Interactions between social cognition and symptoms of schizophrenia have been investigated, but mostly component by component. Here we tested the assumption that two categories of deficits exist depending on clinical profiles, one corresponding to a defect in social cognition - "under-social cognition" - and one corresponding to excessive attributions leading to social cognitive impairments - "over-social cognition". To conduct the investigation, we performed a Hierarchical Clustering Analysis using positive and negative symptoms in seventy patients with schizophrenia and we compared the clusters obtained to a group of healthy controls on social cognitive measures. We distinguished two social cognitive profiles based on prevailing symptoms for emotion processes and Theory of Mind. Actually, patients with negative symptoms showed lower performances in emotion recognition task than both those with positive symptoms and controls. Concerning Theory of Mind, patients with positive symptoms had a significant tendency to make over interpretative errors than both patients with negative symptoms and controls. For other processes assessed, further explorations are needed. Actually, concerning social perception and knowledge both patients' groups presented significant impairments compared to controls. Assessment of attribution bias showed that patients in the positive group presented a significant hostility bias and a higher intentionality score compared to healthy controls. These results favor the existence of different categories of impairments depending more on the clinical characteristics of patients than on nosographical categories, but further investigations are now necessary to specify these profiles. It nevertheless showed the importance of assessing symptoms in relationship with cognitive functioning.

Keywords: Attribution style; Emotion; Schizophrenia; Social cognition; Symptoms; Theory of mind.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Tests constituting the ClaCoS battery.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Cluster group characteristics according to the PANSS items.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Percentage of correct answers on the TREF assessing emotion recognition.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Scores for the MASC test assessing Theory of Mind.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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