1. Method Introduction Results Discussion Different Neurocognitive Abilities Moderate the Relationship between Affect Perception and Community Functioning Among Subpopulations of People with Serious Mental Illness Melissa Tarasenko, Felice Reddy, & William D. Spaulding University of Nebraska-Lincoln Participants: Thirty-seven participants recruited from two adult day programs in the Midwest that serve individuals with SMI who require minimal assistance daily living activities. Measures: Face/Voice Emotion Identification Test (FEIT/VEIT; Kerr and Neale, 1993): The FEIT consists of still photographs of faces, adopted from Ekman (1976) and Izard (1971) that convey happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and shame, while the VEIT consists of 21 recorded neutral statements that are vocalized to convey the emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, or shame. Participants choose one of the six emotions that they believe is being depicted by the stimuli. Bell-Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task (BLERT; Bell et al., 1997): Twenty-one video clips that feature a male actor making neutral statements about a job. The participant is instructed to determine whether the actor is portraying happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, or no emotion based on his facial expression and affective prosody. Neuropsychological Assessment Battery – Screening Module (NAB-Screener; Stern and White, 2003): A battery of tests that assess Attention, Memory, Executive Functions, Language, and Spatial Ability. Multnomah Community Ability Scale (MCAS; Barker et al., 1994): Measure of global functioning for people with SMI who live in the community. It is intended to be completed by case managers or other staff who are familiar with the participants. The MCAS assesses functioning in the areas of General Functioning, Community Adjustment, and Social Competence. Data Analysis: A cluster analysis with one-way ANOVA and Fisher’s LSD follow-up tests was performed. People with serious mental illness (SMI) often exhibit deficits in multiple functional domains, including independent living, occupational functioning, and social functioning. Relatively molecular cognitive and social cognitive abilities have been shown to contribute to performance in these broader functional domains. Affect perception is one social cognitive ability that has been shown to play a role in social functioning; however, little research has focused on the individual differences that might influence the relationship between affect perception and social functioning. The present study sought to determine whether there are differential relationships between affect perception and community functioning among neurocognitive subpopulations of people with SMI. All clusters: Groups 1 and 3 scored higher on the Memory domain of the NAB- Screener than did groups 2 and 4, F(3)=5.3, p<.05. Groups 1 and 3 also scored higher on the VEIT and BLERT than did groups 2 and 4, F(3)=14.2, and 14.7, respectively, all p’s<.01. On the FEIT, group 4 differed significantly from all other groups, F(3)=5.6, p<.01. “High memory” cluster: Group 1 scored higher on Attention domain of the NAB-Screener than did group 3 (MD=27.4, p<.05). Group 1 was also rated higher than group 3 on the General Functioning (MD=5.7, p<.01), Adjustment (MD=4.3, p<.01), and Social Competence (MD=6.9, p<.01) domains of the MCAS. “Low memory” cluster: Group 2 performed better than group 4 on the Executive Functions domain of the NAB-Screener (mean difference=25.3, p<.05). Group 2 was also rated higher than group 4 on the General Functioning (MD=7.3, p<.01), Adjustment (MD=3.9, p<.01), and Social Competence (MD=6.9, p<.01) domains of the MCAS. FEIT VEIT BLERT GenFx Adjust SocCom MCAS Total Measures Z-Scores People with relatively strong memory abilities also performed relatively well on tasks of facial, vocal, and integrated affect perception. Memory thus appears to play an important role in the decoding of emotional cues. In people with relatively strong memory abilities, attention appears to moderate the relationship between affect perception and community functioning. In people with relatively low memory abilities, executive functioning appears to moderate the relationship between affect perception and community functioning. These findings support the need for individualized assessment and treatment of people with SMI. Remediation of various cognitive deficits may significantly impact social functioning, and the specific abilities to target may depend heavily on one’s profile of cognitive strengths and weaknesses.