Relationships between neurocognition, emotional processing and social functioning in schizophrenia

A series of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia have led to a focus on neuro- and social cognition in current research and professional practice. These deficits have significant implications for social functioning. The aim of the current study is to analyse the relationships between neurocognition, social cognition (evaluated via emotional recognition tasks) and social functioning. Sixty people diagnosed with schizophrenia made up the sample and the following areas were evaluated: executive functioning and cognitive flexibility, attention and vigilance, processing speed, emotion identification and discrimination and community functioning. Results indicate that measures of basic cognition correlate significantly with communal functioning while measures of emotion recognition, especially those identifying facial emotions only correlate positively with one area of communal functioning, namely that of communication and social contact.