Movement, face processing and schizophrenia: Evidence of a differential deficit in expression analysis

Abstract

Three dynamic face‐processing tasks based on the Bruce & Young (1986) functional model of face processing were presented to 10 schizophrenic and 10 depressed inpatients and to 10 non‐patient subjects. Familiar face recognition, facial expression recognition and unfamiliar face matching were examined. Schizophrenic patients' performance was significantly poorer than that of depressed patients and non‐patient controls. Significantly lower scores were obtained on the facial expression recognition task than on the familiar face recognition task. There was a differential pattern of group performance on each of the three tasks: schizophrenic and depressed patients were as accurate as non‐patient controls on the familiar face recognition task, but significantly less accurate than non‐patient controls on the unfamiliar face‐matching task. Schizophrenic patients were significantly less accurate than depressed patients and non‐patient controls on the facial expression recognition task. The results are contrasted with an analogous static face‐processing study.