A preliminary study of emotion processing interference in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder

Abstract The impact of emotional arousal may be an equal or more important factor than valence in determining whether emotion interferes with language output in individuals with schizophrenia. An affective reactivity task, comprising conditions separated by emotional valence (positive, negative) and arousal (low, high), was administered to 22 individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 13 non-patient controls. Individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder demonstrated variable reactivity to both valence arousal. Results suggest that high arousal content can be especially impairing to certain individuals, and it is those individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder who demonstrate more depressive symptomatology that show the greatest affective reactivity to negatively valenced, high arousing information. Clarifying aberrant emotion processing in schizophrenia is crucial to understanding precursors to symptom exacerbation and to the consideration of optimal treatment strategies.