The aim of this study was to investigate face recognition in subjects with an at risk mental state for psychosis (ARMS) compared with healthy controls (HC) and patients with schizophrenia (SchP).

We examined the performance of 40 healthy controls, 47 ARMS individuals and 28 patients with schizophrenia using the Emotions Battery of the University of Pennsylvania computerized Neuropsychological Battery. ARMS subjects putatively met early prodromal state of schizophrenia, mainly characterized by the presence of basic symptoms. All ARMS individuals met the risk criterion cognitive-perceptive basic symptoms (COPER) using the SPI-A (Schizophrenia Proneness Instrument, Adult version). The ARMS participants were recruited for this study during the medical check-up before the conscription. All subjects were male. A one-way ANOVA and non-parametric Kruskall-Wallis test were performed to determine group differences.

There were several differences in Emotional processing between ARMS and HC with poorly performance in emotion recognition and discrimination, facial memory tasks in ARMS subjects. At the same time differences between HC and schizophrenia patients were more prominent and significant in most parameters of emotion recognition and discrimination. ARMS subjects had significantly greater reaction times in emotion recognition tasks than HC.

Deficit in emotional processing is related to the presence of basic symptoms and early prodromal state of schizophrenia. The performance of the ARMS group is between that of the schizophrenia patients and control groups.