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Published on: December 2, 2015
Evidence for an emotion maintenance deficit in schizophrenia
David E Gard1, Shanna Cooper, Melissa Fisher
1Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA. dgard@sfsu.edu
Psychiatry Research
|January 18, 2011
Summary
People with schizophrenia struggle to maintain emotional experiences, unlike those without the condition. This deficit in emotion maintenance may be linked to reduced motivation, impacting goal-directed behavior.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Cognitive Psychology
Background:
- Schizophrenia is associated with deficits in reward processing and goal-directed behavior.
- These deficits may influence the ability to maintain emotional experiences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate emotion maintenance capabilities in individuals with schizophrenia.
- To compare emotion maintenance with in-the-moment emotion experience.
Main Methods:
- A laboratory-based study involving 28 individuals with schizophrenia and 19 controls.
- Participants completed emotion and brightness experience maintenance tasks with a 3-second delay.
- Visual working memory and motivation assessments were conducted for patients.
Main Results:
- Individuals with schizophrenia exhibited normal in-the-moment emotion experience.
- Schizophrenia patients showed significantly impaired emotion maintenance for both positive and negative emotions.
- The emotion maintenance deficit was not linked to visual brightness or working memory performance.
Conclusions:
- Impaired emotion maintenance in schizophrenia is distinct from in-the-moment experience.
- Negative emotion maintenance deficits correlate with lower motivation in schizophrenia patients.
- These findings suggest a link between impaired emotion maintenance and deficits in motivated behavior in schizophrenia.
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