Auditory Perception and Emotion Recognition in Young People at Risk for Psychosis

精神分裂症患者在处理基本声音特性方面受到损害，如音调和强度， 而基频处理的缺陷与情绪识别障碍有关。我们的 先前的研究表明，精神分裂症患者普遍存在基本听觉缺陷 处理，其中关键是在锁相范围内的频谱处理的损害 听觉系统。然而，目前还不知道基本的听觉处理缺陷是否与 疾病前情绪处理受损。对听觉情感知觉的需求成为 随着儿童进入青春期和社会互动变得更加复杂，这一点变得更加关键。因此，我们 假设青少年对情绪的听觉感知是精神分裂症的早期认知标志 开始了。在我们解决这一假设之前，确定哪些听觉处理缺陷是至关重要的 是受损最严重的，并显示出与超高风险个体的情绪处理有关 (Uhr)用于发展精神分裂症。这个项目的目标是确定离散的听觉 UHR个体听觉情绪处理缺陷的潜在损害。我们假设UHR 个人将在基本听觉技能和涉及光谱的测试中表现出广泛的缺陷 听觉系统锁相范围内的辨别能力将是受损最严重的技能之一。 而最强烈的关联是无法从语气中理解情绪。如果成功， 这些结果将使改善听觉情绪处理的治疗方法的开发成为可能 青春期和减缓成年后精神障碍的进展。

Individuals with schizophrenia are impaired in processing basic sound properties, such as pitch and intensity, and deficits in processing of fundamental frequency are associated with emotion recognition impairments. Our previous work indicates that individuals with schizophrenia have widespread deficits in basic auditory processing, and key among these are impairments to spectral processing in the phase-locking range of the auditory system. However, it is not yet known if basic auditory processing deficits are associated with the impaired emotional processing preceding the illness. The demand on auditory emotion perception becomes more critical as children enter adolescence and social interactions become more complex. We therefore hypothesize that adolescents’ auditory perception of emotion is an early cognitive marker for schizophrenia onset. Before we can address this hypothesis it is essential to determine which auditory processing deficits are most impaired and which demonstrate a relationship to emotion processing in individuals at ultra high risk (UHR) for developing schizophrenia. The goals for this project are to determine the discrete auditory impairments underlying the auditory emotion processing deficits in UHR individuals. We hypothesize that UHR individuals will demonstrate widespread deficits in basic auditory skills and that tests that involve spectral discriminations within the phase-locking range of the auditory system will be among the most impaired skills and the most strongly associated with an inability to understand emotion from tone of voice. If successful, these results will enable the development of treatments that improve auditory emotion processing in adolescence and mitigate later progression to adult psychotic disorders.