PMC

A schematic diagram of a single trial of a situational context condition. After a fixation point was presented for 200 msec, a sentence (either fear- or surprise-inducing sentences) was shown on the screen and an experimenter read the sentence to the subject. When the sentence disappeared, a face (either surprised or neutral) was presented for 250 msec, followed by a 9-point rating scale (1: very afraid, 5: neither, and 9: very surprised). Subjects were asked to rate how afraid or surprised a face appeared.

Performance of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls in study 1. (A) Ratings of the face stimuli for the situational context condition. Both schizophrenia patients and controls rated faces as more fearful when they were paired with fear-inducing sentences and more surprised when they were paired with surprise-inducing sentences. This degree of context modulation was comparable across groups. (B) Ratings of the face stimuli for the no-context condition. When there was no context, both schizophrenia patients and controls rated fearful faces as more afraid and surprise faces as more surprised relative to neutral faces. Values represent the mean ratings (SE).

Performance of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls in study 2. (A) Ratings of the face stimuli for the situational context condition. Similar to study 1, contextual modulation of facial affect processing was comparable across groups. (B) Ratings of the face stimuli for the no-context condition. When there was no context, both schizophrenia patients and controls rated fearful faces as more afraid and surprise faces as more surprised relative to neutral faces. Values represent the mean ratings (SE).