Figure 1

The behavioral performance during encoding phase. (A) The line graphs depict the response time (RT) among patients with first-episode schizophrenia (SZ), bipolar disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD) and healthy controls (HC). In the context of mother-referential processing, RTs were longer for patients with MDD compared to HC. Under all three experiment conditions, both first-episode SZ and BD patients exhibited prolonged RTs relative to HC. Within self-referential processing conditions, MDD patients showed shorter RTs than first-episode SZ patients. When it came to other-referential processing, MDD patients demonstrated shorter RTs compared to first-episode SZ and BD patients. In patient cohorts, there is no discernible difference in RTs between the self-referential and mother-referential processing conditions; however, both consistently exhibit longer RTs than those recorded under the other-referential condition. In contrast, among the control group, a clear distinction exists such that RTs are significantly longer under the mother-referential condition relative to the other-referential condition alone. (B) The bar graphs depict the group differences of bias RT among first-episode SZ, BD, MDD and HC. The normal group had lower bias RT compared to first-episode SZ patients and MDD patients. **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05. SM: self-mother, MR: Mother-other, SR: self-other.