Normative emotion-modulated startle response in individuals at risk for schizophrenia–spectrum disorders

• Published in: Schizophrenia research Vol. 57; no. 1; pp. 109 - 120
• Main Authors: Gooding, Diane C, Davidson, Richard J, Putnam, Katherine M, Tallent, Kathleen A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.09.2002; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Affect; Biological and medical sciences; Emotion-modulated startle; Female; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Medical sciences; Photic Stimulation; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychoses; Reflex, Startle - physiology; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - physiopathology; Social anhedonia; Social Behavior; Surveys and Questionnaires; Schizophrenia; Emotion-modulated startle; Social anhedonia; Human; Healthy subject; Attitude; Anhedonia; Personality; Emotion emotionality; Startle reflex; Student; Psychosis; Electrodiagnosis; Hearing; Acoustic stimulus; Social interaction; Risk factor; Perception; Electromyography; Comparative study; Interpersonal relation
• ISSN: 0920-9964; 1573-2509
• DOI: 10.1016/S0920-9964(01)00295-X

The nature of the affective deficit that characterizes social anhedonia is not well understood. Emotionally evocative visual stimuli were presented to undergraduates identified as anhedonic or normal, based on their scores on the revised Social Anhedonia Scale. The affective stimuli were chosen to elicit positive and negative emotion; a subset of slides were specifically chosen to include social–interpersonal content. In the acoustic startle paradigm, participants were administered startle probes (50-ms 95 dB white noise bursts) while viewing images from the International Affective Picture System. Socially anhedonic individuals did not differ from normally hedonic individuals in terms of their physiological response to the stimuli, regardless of the nature of the content of the stimuli. However, on the self-report measures of trait affectivity, the socially anhedonic individuals reported significantly lower levels of positive affect and higher levels of negative affect. These findings suggest that the affective deficits reported by socially anhedonic individuals are not global in nature.