Deficits in response inhibition of negative emotional faces in patients with schizophrenia and individuals with high schizotypal traits under explicit and implicit conditions.

The ability to inhibit inappropriate responses and suppress irrelevant emotional faces is a core feature of executive control, essential for emotion processing and social functioning. Although some studies have found that patients with schizophrenia have deficits in response to emotional faces under explicit conditions, it is unclear whether they also have deficits under implicit conditions. In addition, it is not clear whether this deficit also exists in individuals with high schizotypal traits. Thirty-two patients with schizophrenia and 36 healthy controls, as well as 34 individuals with high schizotypal traits and 39 individuals with low schizotypal traits, participated in this study. A stop signal task that includes non-emotional, explicit and implicit emotional conditions was used to assess the response inhibition ability. Mixed-model ANOVAs were used to evaluate the intra-group and inter-group effects. We found that patients with schizophrenia demonstrated longer stop signal response times (SSRT), shorter stop signal delay times (SSD), and lower success rates (P) compared to healthy controls, both under explicit and implicit conditions, while individuals with high schizotypal traits only exhibited longer SSRT, shorter SSD, and lower P to negative emotional facial stimuli under implicit condition compared to individuals with low schizotypal traits. There were no significant group differences in non-emotional condition. These findings suggested the deficiency of inhibitory response to emotional faces, especially to negative facial stimuli under implicit conditions, which may serve as a characteristic indicator of the schizophrenia spectrum and thus has potential clinical significance for the early identification and precise intervention.