False Identification of Humour in Schizophrenia

Background: Patients with schizophrenia are impaired in humour processing. However, it is not clear for the cognitive mechanism underlying these deficits and its associations with clinical symptoms. Methods: Sixty-five patients with schizophrenia and 52 healthy controls completed a behavioural task based on the signal detection theory to explore the humour processing deficits in schizophrenia. Results: Patients with schizophrenia falsely identified more non-humour stimuli as humour stimuli, and showed a larger within-group incoherence than the healthy controls. In patients with schizophrenia, the false alarm rate during humour processing as such was found to have a positive correlation with negative symptoms. Conclusion: These findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia exhibit humour processing deficits, in terms of an elevated false identification of humour which is associated with the severity of negative symptoms.