Impaired error monitoring contributes to face recognition deficit in schizophrenia patients

It has been proposed that social and cognitive deficits in schizophrenia may result from impaired error monitoring.

We tested the hypothesis that among schizophrenia patients, impaired error monitoring contributes to poor face recognition, an important social skill.

79 schizophrenia patients and 57 healthy individuals were administered a computerized face recognition test which allowed collection of accuracy and latency performance parameters. Error monitoring was assessed by analyzing reaction times for correct (RTC) and incorrect (RTI) responses. Tests of working memory (WM) and processing speed were also administered.

RTI was longer than RTC in patients and controls and did not differ between the groups. RTC was significantly longer in patients than controls. Error monitoring effort, calculated by dividing the difference between RTI and RTC by the sum of RTC and RTI, was significantly smaller in patients than controls. A regression model with face recognition performance as dependent variable showed independent contributions of error monitoring effort, spatial working memory and group (patient/healthy) to test performance and explained 26.1% of the variance.

Error monitoring function influences face recognition accuracy and is impaired in schizophrenia. Impairments in error monitoring, and spatial WM contribute to face recognition deficits in schizophrenia.