Anhedonia is associated with impaired memory for positive emotional stimuli in individuals with schizophrenia

Individuals with psychotic disorders routinely display anhedonia when rated on clinical interviews that rely on retrospective reports of pleasure; however, hedonic response is intact on laboratory paradigms measuring self-reported in-the-moment (i.e., consummatory) pleasure. It is currently unclear how to reconcile this apparent discrepancy. In the present study, we examined the possibility that clinician-rated anhedonia is associated with impaired memory for positive information across two experiments.

In Experiment 1, individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (SZ; n = 28) and healthy controls (CN: n = 21) completed valence and arousal ratings of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral photograph stimuli, followed by an unprompted recognition test after a 1-week delay. In Experiment 2, individuals with SZ (n = 102) and CN (n = 60) completed the Emotional Verbal Learning Test, which assesses memory for word stimuli from happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety conditions over five immediate free-recall trials, short-delay free recall, 20-min long-delay free recall, and long-delay yes/no recognition conditions.

Results of Experiment 1 indicated that SZ and CN reported similar levels of valence and arousal to visual stimuli; however, SZ had poorer recognition memory for both pleasant and unpleasant stimuli compared with CN. In Experiment 2, CN demonstrated preferential recall for happiness over sadness, anger, and anxiety stimuli. However, this preferential recall advantage for happiness stimuli was less evident in SZ.

Across both studies, reduced recall or recognition for positive stimuli was associated with greater severity of anhedonia. Collectively, findings from these two experiments suggest that clinical ratings of anhedonia are associated with memory deficits for positive stimuli in SZ. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).