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European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience

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15-03-2023 | Mood Disorders | Original Paper

Attentional biases in facial emotion processing in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis

Authors: Trevor F. Williams, Alex S. Cohen, Alvaro Sanchez-Lopez, Jutta Joormann, Vijay A. Mittal

Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience | Issue 8/2023

Abstract

Individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis exhibit altered facial emotion processing (FEP) and poor social functioning. It is unclear whether FEP deficits result from attentional biases, and further, how these abnormalities are linked to symptomatology (e.g., negative symptoms) and highly comorbid disorders that are also tied to abnormal FEP (e.g., depression). In the present study, we employed an eye-tracking paradigm to assess attentional biases and clinical interviews to examine differences between CHR (N = 34) individuals and healthy controls (HC; N = 46), as well as how such biases relate to symptoms and functioning in CHR individuals. Although no CHR-HC differences emerged in attentional biases, within the CHR group, symptoms and functioning were related to biases. Depressive symptoms were related to some free-view attention switching biases (e.g., to and from fearful faces, r = .50). Negative symptoms were related to more slowly disengaging from happy faces (r = .44), spending less time looking at neutral faces (r = – .42), and more time looking at no face (Avolition, r = .44). In addition, global social functioning was related to processes that overlapped with both depression and negative symptoms, including time looking at no face (r = – .68) and free-view attention switching with fearful faces (r = – .40). These findings are consistent with previous research, indicating that negative symptoms play a prominent role in the CHR syndrome, with distinct mechanisms relative to depression. Furthermore, the results suggest that attentional bias indices from eye-tracking paradigms may be predictive of social functioning.

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Title: Attentional biases in facial emotion processing in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis
Authors: Trevor F. Williams
Alex S. Cohen
Alvaro Sanchez-Lopez
Jutta Joormann
Vijay A. Mittal
Publication date: 15-03-2023
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Keywords: Mood Disorders
Affective Disorder
Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience / Issue 8/2023
Print ISSN: 0940-1334
Electronic ISSN: 1433-8491
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-023-01582-1

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Attentional biases in facial emotion processing in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis

Abstract

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Abstract

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