Does comprehensive cognitive remediation improve emotion perception?

ABSTRACT

Background: Social cognition, including emotion perception, is impaired in people with serious mental illnesses (SMI), and is associated with cognitive and community functioning. Cognitive remediation can improve neurocognition, but the impact on emotion perception has been less well studied. The current study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a cognitive remediation programme in improving emotion perception.

Methods: Thirty-seven people with SMI and a history of difficulties obtaining employment were randomised to either vocational rehabilitation only, or vocational rehabilitation combined with cognitive remediation. Participants were assessed at baseline and post-treatment on a neurocognitive battery, work history, and emotion perception.

Results: The cognitive remediation group did not improve more than the vocational rehabilitation only group on either measure of emotion perception, despite significantly greater gains in cognitive functioning. Baseline emotion identification, but not discrimination, was significantly associated with cognition and work history.

Conclusions: Despite associations between social and neurocognition, there was no evident transfer of cognitive gains to performance on measures of emotion perception. The findings, though limited by a small sample size, are important in expanding the research indicating that the effects of cognitive remediation tend to be limited to the specific cognitive domains targeted in the program.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognitive remediation
• Emotion identification
• Emotion discrimination
• Neurocognition
• Randomised Control Trial
• Thinking Skills For Work

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) grant #H133G050230 to Susan R. McGurk. This secondary data analysis project was supported by an internal fund from Massachusetts Department of Mental Health to the Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) grant #H133G050230 to Susan R. McGurk. This secondary data analysis project was supported by an internal fund from Massachusetts Department of Mental Health to the Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital to Abigail C. Wright and Kim T. Mueser.