Intact emotion–cognition interaction in schizophrenia patients and first-degree relatives: Evidence from an emotional antisaccade task

• Emotion-cognition interaction was investigated using an emotional antisaccade task.
• Schizophrenia patients had higher antisaccade error rates than relatives/controls.
• All participants made more errors to fearful compared to neutral/disgusted faces.
• Implicit emotional face processing is intact in patients and first-degree relatives.

Schizophrenia patients have deficits in cognitive control as well as in a number of emotional domains. The antisaccade task is a measure of cognitive control that requires the inhibition of a reflex-like eye movement to a peripheral stimulus. Antisaccade performance has been shown to be modulated by the emotional content of the peripheral stimuli, with emotional stimuli leading to higher error rates than neutral stimuli, reflecting an implicit emotion processing effect. The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact on antisaccade performance of threat-related emotional facial stimuli in schizophrenia patients, first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Fifteen patients, 22 relatives and 26 controls, matched for gender, age and verbal intelligence, carried out an antisaccade task with pictures of faces displaying disgusted, fearful and neutral expressions as peripheral stimuli. We observed higher antisaccade error rates in schizophrenia patients compared to first-degree relatives and controls. Relatives and controls did not differ significantly from each other. Antisaccade error rate was influenced by the emotional nature of the stimuli: participants had higher antisaccade error rates in response to fearful faces compared to neutral and disgusted faces. As this emotional influence on cognitive control did not differ between groups we conclude that implicit processing of emotional faces is intact in patients with schizophrenia and those at risk for the illness.