A social neuroscientific examination of affective resonance in schizophrenia : understanding empathic disruption

Abstract

Empathy, as a social cognitive skill, is recognised to be of critical importance for understanding, and potentially improving, social dysfunction in schizophrenia. However, empirical investigations of this construct in schizophrenia are limited. The present thesis makes a substantive contribution to this research domain by examining whether the bottom-up affective resonance mechanisms known to underlie the generation of empathic responding are affected in this group. Study 1 examined the capacity for rapid, spontaneous facial mimicry, a behavioural manifestation of bottom-up affective resonance. Mimetic reactions to others emotional expressions were quantified using electromyography. In contrast to controls (N = 25), individuals with schizophrenia (N =25) did not spontaneously mimic observed emotional expressions. Thus, the bottom-up route to the generation of empathy appears to be functioning atypically in schizophrenia. Studies 2 and 3 examined the influence of face-processing disturbances on spontaneous mimetic responses. Study 2 showed that individuals with schizophrenia (N = 24) are capable of spontaneously configuring their facial musculature into recognisable emotional expressions with comparable intensity and temporality to healthy individuals (N = 21); however, this response was only triggered by non-facial stimuli, and not demonstrated in reaction to faces. Study 3 compared spontaneous facial mimicry to upright versus inverted emotional expressions in a neurotypical sample (N = 60). Here, it was demonstrated for the first time that face-processing disturbances influence the occurrence of spontaneously generated facial mimetic reactions. Together, Studies 2 and 3 provide novel evidence for perceptual disruptions as a potential contributing mechanism to empathic disturbance in schizophrenia. Study 4 provided the first assessment of the temporal neural dynamics of empathic responding in schizophrenia using an event-related potential empathy for pain paradigm. It was found that individuals with schizophrenia (N = 17) display abnormal neural responding at automatic, emotion-sharing (frontal N110), and controlled, cognitive (central LPP) processing stages of pain empathy, relative to control individuals (N = 19). Together, these studies suggest that schizophrenia is marked by disturbances in bottom-up automatic resonance processes that likely contribute to empathic and socio-emotional processing deficits. Implications for simulation theories of empathy and social functioning in schizophrenia are discussed.