Do schizophrenic patients show a disjunctive relationship among expressive, experiential, and psychophysiological components of emotion?

Abstract

Recent research has found a discrepancy between schizophrenic patients' outward expression of emotion and their reported emotional experience. In this study, which attempts to replicate and extend the findings of previous studies, participants with and without schizophrenia viewed emotional film clips while their facial expressions were videotaped and skin conductance was recorded. Participants also reported their subjective experience of emotion following each film. Those with schizophrenia were less facially expressive than controls during the emotional films and reported experiencing as much positive and negative emotion, replicating previous findings. Additionally, schizophrenic patients exhibited greater skin conductance reactivity to all films than controls. These findings suggest a disjunction among emotional response domains for schizophrenic patients; alternative explanations for the findings are considered as well as suggestions for future research.