High functioning individuals with schizophrenia have preserved social perception but not mentalizing abilities

Tatiana M. Karpouzian, Eva C. Alden, James L. Reilly, Matthew J. Smith*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

Social perception and mentalizing are fundamental social cognitive abilities that are related to functioning and are impaired in schizophrenia. A novel approach to examine the relationship between social cognition and community functioning is to first functionally categorize individuals with schizophrenia and then evaluate social cognitive performance. We evaluated differences in social perception and mentalizing among controls (CON, n = 45), high functioning individuals with schizophrenia (HF-SCZ, n = 36), and individuals with low functioning schizophrenia (LF-SCZ, n = 24). Analyses revealed that HF-SCZ had preserved social perceptual abilities compared to LF-SCZ. Both schizophrenia groups had impaired mentalizing abilities compared to CON, but did not differ from each other. These results suggest that HF-SCZ and LF-SCZ are characterized by differences in the perceptual aspects of social cognition and encourage future research to evaluate the neural basis underlying this preserved ability.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)137-139
Number of pages3
JournalSchizophrenia Research
Volume171
Issue number1-3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2016

Funding

This study was funded by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine .

Keywords

  • Community functioning
  • Mentalizing
  • Schizophrenia
  • Social cognition
  • Social perception

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Psychiatry and Mental health
  • Biological Psychiatry

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