Emotion word use in the conversational speech of schizophrenia patients

Abstract

Introduction. Many recent studies have found that, although schizophrenia patients tend to display diminished facial expressions of emotion, they report levels of emotional experiences that are similar to those of controls. Although these findings are very informative, it is unknown whether such dissociation exits for other modalities such as verbal expression of emotion. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between the use of emotion words during a free speech task and subjective experience of emotion in schizophrenia patients and controls.

Methods. Speech samples of 48 schizophrenia patients and 48 nonpsychiatric control individuals were compared on the type and amount of emotional words used, as well as on the level of self-reported stress experienced while providing descriptions of themselves.

Results. Groups did not differ in the amount or type of emotion words uttered during the free speech task. Patients, however, found the task more stressful than controls. Emotion word use and subjective emotional experience were not related in either group.

Conclusions. Results do not fully support prior findings, but are consistent with the notion of a lack of correspondence between the expression and experience of emotion.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• Experience
• Expression
• Schizophrenia
• Speech

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the individuals who agreed to participate in this study, as well as administration and clinical staff at Community Support Services in Akron, OH. We also wish to thank the reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. This work was supported by NIMH grants MH58783 and MH57151 awarded to ND as well as by a graduate student fellowship from the Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ) awarded to ASH.

Notes

¹A copy of the modified LIWC Emotion Word Dictionary is available upon request.