%0 Journal Article
%T MISATTRIBUTION OF EMOTIONAL OVER-AROUSAL TO NEUTRAL FACES IN ACUTE PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA PSYCHOSIS.
%A Haralanova E
%A Milushev E
%A José Martín Gargiulo Á
%A María Lucrecia Gargiulo M
%A Pascual Ítalo Gargiulo A
%A Constantino Josué Gargiulo M
%A Alejandro Guevara M
%A Inés Landa De Gargiulo A
%A Darío López N
%A Vicente Lafuente J
%A Ángel Gargiulo P
%A Haralanov S
%J Psychiatr Danub
%V 35
%N 4
%D 2023
%M 37992096
%F 2.696
%R 10.24869/psyd.2023.512
%X <B>BACKGROUND: </B>Misattribution of motivational salience to non-salient (neutral) stimuli could be viewed as a hallmark of psychosis in schizophrenia. Studies have recently revealed increased subjective experience of emotional arousal (EA) to neutral social stimuli in paranoid schizophrenia psychosis, suggesting a misattribution of emotional salience to them. We examined this phenomenon directly by quantifying the level of EA subjectively attributed to low-arousal, neutral-valenced faces.<BR><B>METHODS: </B>A task for EA attribution to neutral (in the context of affective) facial expressions was applied to 44 actively psychotic paranoid schizophrenia inpatients and 44 well-matched healthy controls.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>Psychotic patients, compared with healthy controls, rated the neutral faces as more aroused (t (86) = 3.15, p =.001) thus misattributing emotional salience to them.<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>This finding supports the hypothesis that over-assignment of EA to neutral faces could be viewed as a subclinical affective mechanism of the clinically manifested experience of delusional perception.<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>The study provides the first direct empirical evidence for misattribution of emotional salience in terms of over-attribution of EA to neutral faces during acute paranoid schizophrenia psychosis.