Social Cognition in Schizophrenia

Social cognition has become a rapidly growing area of schizophrenia research. Individuals with schizophrenia show substantial and persistent impairments in a range of social cognitive domains, including emotion processing, social perception, attributional bias, and theory of mind. The social cognitive impairment in schizophrenia is associated with, but separable from, impairments in (nonsocial) neurocognition such as attention, memory, and problem solving. Social cognition is a key determinant of functional disability of schizophrenia; it acts as a mediator between neurocognition and functional outcome, and it contributes unique information about functional outcome beyond that provided by neurocognition. Efforts to develop interventions to improve social cognitive impairments through new pharmacological and training approaches are under way.