Attention shaping as a means to improve emotion perception deficits in outpatients with schizophrenia and impaired controls.

Deficits in emotion perception are common in people with schizophrenia and current research has focused on improving these deficits. In our previous research, we demonstrated that directing attention to salient facial features via attention shaping can improve these deficits among inpatients. In this study, we examined the efficacy of an enhanced attention shaping program that contains 192 emotional expressions from which 25 are randomly presented for training.

Perceptions of hostility by persons with and without persecutory delusions.

Introduction: Current models of paranoia propose that ambiguous situations, in which cues regarding the intentions of others are lacking, may be perceived as hostile by persons with persecutory delusions (PD). Thus, a social-cognitive bias for the perception of hostility may be present. In this study, the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ) was used to present situations that are ambiguous regarding the intentions of others.