Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 15, 2026

Conscious and Non-conscious Representations of Emotional Faces in Asperger's Syndrome
Published on: July 31, 2016
Facial emotion recognition in patients with violent schizophrenia
Sedat Demirbuga1, Esat Sahin, Ismail Ozver
1Forensic Medical Council, Istanbul, Ministry of Justice, Turkey.
Background:
People with schizophrenia are more likely considered to be violent than the general population. Besides some well described symptoms, patients with schizophrenia have problems in recognizing basic facial emotions which could underlie the misinterpretation of others' intentions that could lead to violent behaviors. We aimed to investigate the facial emotion recognition ability in violent or non-violent patients with schizophrenia.
Methods:
The severity in both groups was evaluated according to the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. A computer-based test included the photos of four male and four female models with happy, surprised, fearful, sad, angry, disgusted, and neutral facial expressions from Ekman & Friesen's series has been performed to groups. Totally, 41 outpatients with violent schizophrenia and 35 outpatients with non-violent schizophrenia participated in the study.
Results:
The mean age of violent schizophrenia group was 41.50±7.56, and control group's mean age was 39.94±6.79years. There were no significant differences between groups among reaction time for each emotion while recognizing them (p>0.05). In addition, the accuracy rate of answers towards facial emotion recognition test for each emotion and the distribution misidentifications were not significantly different between groups (p>0.05).
Conclusions:
The facial emotion recognition in violent schizophrenia is lacking and we found that the facial emotion recognition ability in violent schizophrenia seems to be a trait feature of the illness.
More Related Videos
05:51Exploring the Use of Isolated Expressions and Film Clips to Evaluate Emotion Recognition by People with Traumatic Brain Injury
Published on: May 15, 2016
13:08Measurement of Fronto-limbic Activity Using an Emotional Oddball Task in Children with Familial High Risk for Schizophrenia
Published on: December 2, 2015
Related Concept Videos
Facial Feedback Hypothesis
Prosopagnosia
Association Areas of the Cortex
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...
Emotional Expression
Universal Facial Expressions
Psychologist Paul Ekman identified seven basic...
Cognitive Theories: Schachter-Singer Theory of Emotion
Physiological Arousal and Cognitive Labeling
According to this theory, when an individual experiences physiological...
Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia: Hallucinations and Delusions
Thought Disorders
Disorganized and unusual thought processes mark thought disorders in schizophrenia. One key feature is disorganized speech, where an individual's conversation includes loosely...